Pain
by Beguile
Summary: After Hugo Strange uses him as a test subject for an experiment in the Narrows, John Blake ends up owing his life to Bane and relying on him to survive. Several years post-TDKR. AU.
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: The characters and concepts in this story are the property of DC Comics, Christopher Nolan, and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.

Summary: After Hugo Strange uses him as a test subject for an experiment in the Narrows, John Blake ends up owing his life to Bane and relying on him to survive. Several years post-_TDKR_. AU.

Rating: Probably around T for violence, gore, and some language.

Warnings: Spoilers for _The Dark Knight Rises_.

Author's Notes: The plot bunny started hopping late last night and demanded that I get writing this ASAP. Let's pretend, for the sake of the story, that Bane survives the end of _The Dark Knight Rises_; I'll explore how later. Please, enjoy!

* * *

Pain

Prologue

"I can help you."

Bane didn't hear him over the sounds of the explosions and kept walking, so Blake forced himself to rise off the table - fighting the restraints, the nausea, the pain – and said, louder this time, "I can help you!"

Now he at least had Bane's attention. The former mercenary turned and fixed a long, hard stare on Blake, trying to discern the validity of the claim based on the other man's current state. The prognosis wasn't good: Blake was strapped to an examination table, blood trailing out of his nose, mouth and ears; right leg paralyzed, left leg in agony; arms cuffed. Even if he could help Bane – which he can – Blake would only be a hindrance and neither of them had any time to waste. The whole lab was about to explode.

Blake wasn't surprised then when Bane turned and walked away, but his anger overwhelmed him. "YOU OWE ME!" he shouted to the hulking figure disappearing into the smoke and flames. "YOU CAN'T JUST LEAVE ME HERE, BANE!"

He could though. That was the problem.

A falling stack of shelves blocked Bane's fading silhouette from view, and Blake got back to fighting to escape. He grit his teeth against the hundreds of agonies crying out for attention from the pounding in his head, the trembling of his muscles, the white hot pain in his lower back , chest, and hips. He just pulled as hard as he could against the leather straps around his wrists, praying that the sweat and blood coating his arms will make his hands slick enough to slide out.

The pain got to him first though. It crested like a wave inside him from every direction, causing the edges of his visions to go as black as the smoke spilling across the ceiling. Blake fell back against the table in its wake and cried out as loudly as he could in defence. The sound of his voice was swallowed up by the impact of the ceiling hitting the floor not far from where he was trapped.

_This can't be it_, he thought, giving his arms and good leg another desperate tug. Growing up orphaned, a job with the GCPD, No Man's Land, Nightwing...Blake's life was nothing but a collection of tough scrapes and brushes with tragedy. He couldn't die here, now, strapped to a table in a burning laboratory after fighting to survive every step of the way. At the very least, he should be on his feet, or at least the only one that works, facing down whatever other catastrophes could possibly come his way with his last few moments on the planet.

He leaned up, ignoring the white hot throb in his lower back, and, fixing his hands into points, pulled with all his might against the bonds.

A bloody hand slammed down on his.

Blake tried to twist out of the way, but the good doctor that brought him here, Strange, had a grip that belied his injured appearance, one that could break Blake's hand if he didn't get away soon. "And where do you think you're going?" Strange asked menacingly, rising from the floor like Lazarus from the dead. The fire made his broken spectacles beam, giving him an even more demonic appearance. He forced Blake back down on the table, wrapping his hands around the detective's throat. "I don't think I'm quite finished with you, ex-Detective Blake."

"I beg to differ, Doctor."

The fire drained from Strange's face as he turned to look over his shoulder. There, looming over the table, was Bane, who wasted no time in grabbing the doctor by the back of the neck and throwing him over a countertop into a pile of glassware. "DON'T!" Blake ordered the mercenary pre-emptively, begged him was more like it, but Bane had already marched around to where the doctor was lying. The thunder of the ceiling crumbling drowned out the sound of bones snapping.

Bane returned to the table a moment later, calm and cool as ever even though the world was crumbling around them and he had just committed murder. Blake's vision was swimming, and the noxious fumes of something were making it difficult to concentrate, so when his right hand was finally free, it took him a moment to reach for Bane.

The mercenary was stronger. He pushed Blake's wrist back into the leather cuff where it came from. "I could leave you here," he warned, "but that wouldn't do either of us any good."  
"Why'd you kill him?" Blake demanded.

"Aside for what the good doctor has done to me," Bane replied as another section of ceiling peals away, taking more glassware with it. The smell of burning chemicals almost made Blake cross-eyed, and he wished he had whatever breathing apparatus Bane was wearing for protection. "He has served his purpose. You claimed you could help me."

Blake nodded. "I can."

"Then I will help you," Bane loosened the strap around Blake's left wrist. An act of God saw him sitting upright on the table, head spinning every which way except the right one. He was almost glad that the hulking mercenary was still standing at the edge of the table when he goes to get off. Bane was big enough for Blake to orient himself around.

Heaving his right leg off first with both hands, Blake followed with his left, balancing precariously. The pain from his back coils so tightly around his left thigh muscle that he almost couldn't walk, but Blake managed a hop or two, right leg dead weight alongside him. He heard Bane hiss – in annoyance, in impatience, in just exhaling – before threading an arm under Blake's and pulling the smaller man along by the shoulders.

His lower back engulfed his whole chest in brutal agony in response to the action. In an instant, Blake couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't see, couldn't feel anything but the old wound tearing him up from the inside out. He had no choice but to pull away, stumbling as he did so, biting back a scream that could shatter the rest of the glass in the lab.

"We do not have time for this," Bane declared.

Blake agreed in silence, blinking hard to clear the darkness from his vision. The smoke clouds had only gotten thicker though. Even Bane seemed to be feeling the burn despite his composure, though it was hard to tell with the way the whole world wobbled in front of Blake's eyes. He reached for the mercenary's hand when it was offered to him...

...just as the ceiling crumbled overhead.

_Well_, Blake thinks, _at least I died on my feet_.

Impact.

* * *

...happy reading? I guess it depends on how much you like seeing Blake suffer.


	2. Chapter One

Disclaimer: The characters and concepts in this story are the property of DC Comics, Christopher Nolan, and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.

Summary: After Hugo Strange uses him as a test subject for an experiment in the Narrows, John Blake ends up owing his life to Bane and relying on him to survive. Several years post-_TDKR_. AU.

Author's Notes: Special thanks to girlbird3 and xXDontOfferMeDrugsXx for following this story; to MrsJohnReese for her kind review. Enjoy!

* * *

Chapter One

Whirring sound. Needle stick. Sharp pain on the back of his neck. Strange's face hovered next to him, grinning maniacally from ear to ear.

_"Just administering your first dose of anesthetic, Mr. Blake."_

No, wait, that wasn't right. Strange had said, "This is going to make it all better." Then a rush of dry heat spread down Blake's spine like a desert wind and he started hemorrhaging from his mouth, nose, and ears.

Blake blinked. Licked his lips. Tried to peer through his half-closed eyes but failed to focus on anything in particular. None of his other senses seemed to be working either. All he could hear was the steady throb of blood in his skull. All he could smell and taste was his own blood. He couldn't feel much beyond the steady ache that seemed to occupy every pore in his body, centred unsurprisingly on his lower back, but he knew he was propped upright against a surface of some kind. Steel wall, rusty...he shifted a little to get his bearings and woke up his lower back in the process.

The fresh wave of white heat cleared his vision. The black and tan blurs solidified before him, taking shape, revealing a derelict chamber and a hulking figure kneeling nearby. Though the man's head was lowered, Blake recognized that broad back and pale scalp anywhere: Bane.

Blake's breath hitched in his throat. Not from pain either, from disorientation, confusion. He couldn't remember where he was or how he got there, what Strange was doing with him, where Bane had come from... His last recollection of the immense mercenary was from almost ten years ago, in the wake of No Man's Land, and Bane hadn't even been spotted in Gotham since then. Upon seeing him now, Blake couldn't help but feel that he'd missed something, something important, but he couldn't focus on anything long enough to find out what it was.

Bane looked up at him suddenly. The only thing that kept Blake from flinching was his concussion, though he felt increasingly more lucid the longer he was under the mercenary's gaze. Adrenaline flooded his bloodstream, clearing the blood from his aching head and clarifying the lack of sensation in his right leg. He swallowed the lump in his throat, put on the brave cop face, and asked in a quiet, hollow voice, "You gonna kill me?"

"If I was going to kill you, I would have done it while you were unconscious," Bane reached for the collar of Blake's shirt. "You may wish for death before all this is over though, little one."

Blake grabbed Bane's arm before it could reach him, but his grip did nothing to deter the larger man from tearing the top of his t-shirt to reveal a bloody mess of cuts and scrapes. The air felt cold on his lashed skin. Blake hissed, and then muttered, "Don't play games with me."

"Ah," Bane started probing the wounds, issuing a groan from Blake, "You don't remember our little arrangement from the laboratory." The mercenary pinched hard against one of the cuts, prying out a piece of splintered wood from inside. It took every ounce of strength Blake had left not to cry out. As it was, he saw white when it happened and tasted bile in the back of his throat.

_Laboratory_ – Blake's mind fixed on the word but couldn't place it. Everything was hazy, scrambled, like a television with a poor signal. "Why would I make any arrangement with you?" he demanded through gritted teeth.

Bane casually pried another piece of wood from under Blake's skin, a larger one this time. Blake made something akin to a sobbing sound. "Desperate men are wont to do desperate things: you were strapped to an operating table and required assistance. Tell me, what do you know of a substance known as Venom?"

Slowly, the clouds in Blake's memory lifted. Venom. A potent, addictive chemical similar to steroids. Scientists had discovered it in Central America, and it wasn't long before reports started surfacing of prison experiments, deaths. Blake had a sudden flash of memory, a jeering demon in glasses that did something that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. "Strange," he said, "Hugo Strange. What does he have to do with Venom?"

"You have heard of it," Bane finished his inspection of Blake's chest and pulled the smaller man away from the wall to inspect his back. The movement jarred Blake's spine into a spasm, and he cried out like a hydrogen bomb had detonated inside him. He tried to push himself away from Bane, back into the safety of his sitting position, but the larger man held him steady with the weight alone of his massive bicep. "I did manage to pull you away from the largest part of the ceiling when it fell," Bane noted, rubbing his calloused fingers over Blake's neck and shoulder blades in a search for splinters, "but it seems Strange may have injured you more severely with his ministrations than I suspected." The mercenary's hand travelled downward to the mess of scar tissue on Blake's lower back. "Or perhaps he may not have needed to injure you at all."

"Please," Blake tried to make his begging sound more like a threat, but it was hard to with how much pain he was in, "Stop."

"Because it hurts?"

"No, because it tickles," Blake spat. Apparently, his ability to use sarcasm was the only part of him that wasn't grievously wounded. "Yes, because it hurts."

"Pain is only in the mind." Bane replied, as if that somehow made the pain go away. He traced the scars on Blake's lower back some more, measuring them, prodding them, curious as a cat. A gigantic, terrorist cat. "

Tears started to creep their way down Blake's face. His mortification complete, he growled at the man next to him, "Let. Go. Of. Me."

"Your wounds must be cleaned. An infection would kill you in our current condition."

Blake scrubbed a hand over his face. The tears helped wash away some of the blood and mucous from his cheeks. He tried to focus on anything other than his own agony, and luckily, Bane had given him the perfect topic for conversation. "And just what is our current condition? Where are we?"

"Old Arkham. In the Narrows. Dr. Strange established a stronghold and a laboratory to use for his experiments."

"Experiments with Venom?"

Bane didn't have to answer. Blake knew. He couldn't remember how he knew, but he did. "So Strange injected you with venom?"

"In a manner of speaking."

Finally, mercifully, Blake felt Bane's hand withdraw and he was eased back into the wall. The fire in his back began to subside, and the pain settled into his back and thigh, coiling like a sleeping snake once more. Blake cast a weary glance at Bane. He wanted to glare but didn't have the strength for it. "What do you mean?"

"Strange's early experiments with Venom were unstable. Many of his test subjects died from exposure to the chemical. Those that did not tended to be killed off by the good doctor for being...unmanageable."

Understatement of the year, Blake thought grimly. Venom made people stronger and faster, gave them an accelerated healing factor and awful anger management issues. No wonder Strange's experiments were such failures. Of course, if Bane had Venom in his system...

Blake cast a worried glance at the mercenary. "How are you still alive?"

"Strange devised a new method of introducing Venom with his more recent subjects. He created a pump that would inject increasing amounts of Venom into an individual's system."

"So you have Venom in your system...right now?"

"Yes," Bane replied.

Blake's blood ran cold. He had seen Bane conquer an entire city, murder countless hundreds. Hell, this was the man who had broken the Batman over his knee. And Strange had given him a chemical compound that made his more powerful, more deadly, and less likely to hold back should those impulses take hold. Great.

Except, Blake eyed the mercenary carefully, Bane wasn't acting like he was on Venom. He didn't look any bigger than last time, which wasn't saying much, given how big Bane already was. He also didn't seem any angrier or more homicidal either, which, again, wasn't saying much.

"The effects of the Venom," Bane said, "Seem to be inhibited by this." He pointed to his mask.

"What does your mask do?"

"It releases a powerful anesthetic."

"Which would subdue the effects of the Venom," Blake nodded. He was starting to get it now, even if he didn't remember. The pump on Bane's back would have to be disconnected, and Blake had the technical expertise to do it. "That's the arrangement," he said quietly. "I remove the pump."

"Yes."

"Without killing you."

"Yes."

"How do you know I won't?" Blake asked.

"Aside for your mercy? Your morality? The fact that I have saved you now not once but three times?" Bane laughed mirthlessly. "In case those weren't incentive enough, I'm the only one who knows the procedure Strange performed on you...and how to reverse it."

* * *

Happy reading!


	3. Chapter Two

Disclaimer: The characters and concepts in this story are the property of DC Comics, Christopher Nolan, and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.

Summary: After Hugo Strange uses him as a test subject for an experiment in the Narrows, John Blake ends up owing his life to Bane and relying on him to survive. Several years post-_TDKR_. AU.

Author's Notes: Thank you to AnaBananabby, Stream'sxCupxOfxTea, and texasberry87 for following and the kind reviewers! I do hope you enjoy the next installment.

* * *

Chapter Two

Blake's whole body went numb, first with fear and then with rage. "You're lying," he spat, trying to keep his breathing measured and his pulse steady. His face twisted a little in anger but remained otherwise impassive. "Strange wouldn't have performed any procedure on me. I'm no good to him as a test subject."

"You were once a protector of Gotham City," Bane explained, "The Nightwing. That would be enough for the good doctor to use you for his experiments."

"That was a long time ago." Four years to be precise, though Blake didn't want to be. The day he had to hang up that costume and take a spot behind a computer monitor was fresh as ever in his memory and hurt a hundred times more than his back ever could. "I'm not Nightwing anymore."

"Perhaps not in body," Blake felt Bane's eyes fix on his abdomen in a straight shot towards his scars, "But in mind, you would make a perfect specimen for Dr. Hugo Strange."

"What did he do?"

"What does it matter? You'll never get the antidote in time without my assistance."

Blake wracked his memory for clues, fighting the rising tide of panic welling up inside him, but all he found were fragments. Tatters. Shards of recollections. He remembered a white room and a face half-obscured by a surgical mask before being struck by the beams of an overhead lamp and a voice telling him everything was going to be better.

Needle stick.

Burning sensation in the back of the neck.

Oh, God...

"What did he give me?" Blake demanded. "Tell me, or I swear I'll let that pump run dry."

Bane, courtly as ever, replied, "You're in no position to make demands."

"The hell I'm not. I'm the only hope you've got of getting off Venom before you start detoxing."

"And while I am in the throes of detox, who is it that you think I will be going after, little one? Old Arkham is abandoned save for a small detachment of Strange's guards. You will be easier to tear apart than them." Bane's black, deadened stare told Blake that this wasn't an unappealing option to him either, even with the prospect of detoxing from Venom thrown into the mix. "I've long made peace with my death," Bane assured him, "But you fear it, enough to live in excruciating pain, to trade your life to the man who crippled Gotham and her Dark Knight."

Blake scowled at Bane. "I have people out there looking for me right now."

"You have people looking for a tracking device, one that Strange removed when you were being transported to this place. They will never find you here in time."

"They're better than you think."

"You're willing to bet your life on that."

It was a question, not a statement, but Bane's observational tone was a sharper, more brutal blade for Blake. He steeled his resolve: yes, he was willing to bet his life on that. There were four other people in the cave now, one big, happy Bat Family, and one was the best hacker in the country. Any minute now, they were going to come crashing through that door to his rescue.

Blake was nagged by a terrifying doubt though: but what _then_? Even if his allies managed to locate him at Old Arkham, even if they fought their way through Strange's men (likely) and Bane (less likely, especially with Venom in his system), they would still have to figure out what Strange had injected him with and procure an antidote of some kind. Blake assumed they would only have a certain amount of time to do it too. Whatever the injection was didn't seem to have taken hold yet. The chances of Bane being any more talkative after being beaten were slimmer than they were now as well...especially if the pump ran dry.

A wave of utter helplessness rose within him, and while Blake braced himself against it, he still felt the impact break him in two. For a split second, his face fell in defeat, but Bane had an eye for broken and recognized the expression immediately. "You are alone, little one," his words echoed into the empty, desolate chamber and rattled Blake to the core, splintering him even further. "I think it best you follow me for your own good, and I shall be your guide and lead you out through an eternal place."

"Shakespeare," Blake muttered accusingly.

"Dante," Bane corrected him.

Blake scoffed, "Fitting."

He glanced around the room once more, now that he had his bearings and a purpose. If the only way out of Hell was through it, he might as well start walking. The room, however, wasn't promising. There wasn't enough light for Blake to see, let alone work, and all the dust, rust, and waste – the withered papers on the floor, rotting furniture, cobwebbed ceilings – were just waiting to cause an infection or muck up the pump's controls. "Strange's lab had electricity...I think," the memories flickered in his brain, but Blake still couldn't place them. "We're gonna need to find a room away from his men with light. Sanitary conditions...better than this place anyways: an exam room, the operating theatre...which ward are we in?"

"Minimum security."

That didn't help, Blake realized. He hadn't been in Old Arkham since before the Occupation, and his head was reeling just from trying to locate the room they were in from his foggy recollections of prisoner drop-offs when he was a cop. As Nightwing, he had to know the layout of New Arkham, but that facility was more streamlined. They were rats in a maze here in Old Arkham, unless Bane had as good a mind for geography as he did for conquering cities.

"There are secure exam rooms on the fifth floor," Bane said.

"How do you know?"

"I have been a resident of the Narrows for many years."

Those would work. "What floor are we on now?"

"The basement."

"And I take it the elevators are down?"

"Unless you intend to alert Strange's men to our location."

Blake's stomach bobbed in his throat like a cork. Sitting hurt. Standing hurt. Walking hurt. But what was coming next, he knew, was going to be a whole new breed of agony for him. "Stairs it is, then," he heard himself saying.

"Indeed," Bane agreed. He started to rise.

Blake didn't notice the mercenary's hand around his throat until it was too late. His vision sputtered, his mind shut down, and everything went black.

* * *

Happy reading!


	4. Chapter Three

Disclaimer: The characters and concepts in this story are the property of DC Comics, Christopher Nolan, and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.

Summary: After Hugo Strange uses him as a test subject for an experiment in the Narrows, John Blake ends up owing his life to Bane and relying on him to survive. Several years post-_TDKR_. AU.

Author's Notes: Thank you to Komi V for following, and to ChiChi-O for reviewing!

* * *

Chapter Three

Blake came to – minutes? hours? days? – later, blinking hard against the brightness of his new surroundings. The naked fluorescent bulb of an overhead lamp reflected off the white walls starkly, piercing his corneas from every direction. The only black spot was Bane, who drifted like a wraith from the closed door of the room towards the beds into the centre. They were in the exam room on the fifth floor, Blake concluded groggily, and Bane had knocked him out with a sleeper hold to make sure they weren't slowed down.

"Don't-" Blake tried to utter, but his tongue had ballooned while he was unconscious, muffling his voice. He reached up to his mouth frantically. The bastard had broken his jaw! Blake growled at Bane, mumbled some kind of threat or another – it wasn't like Bane could do any worse to him at this point – only to find that it wasn't his jaw that was the problem. Bane had gagged him with a rag. Blake tore it out, coughing and spluttering, and glared daggers at his tormentor. "What was that for?"

"In case you regained consciousness. A man who screams from being leaned forward is not about to keep silent from being carried up ten flights of stairs,"

Blake winced, feeling the ten flights of stairs in his back even if he didn't get to experience them first hand. When this was all over, he was going to see Bane got a maximum security, reinforced cell at New Arkham, and that they all but threw away the key.

Bane pushed one of the beds from the far wall towards the chair when Blake was currently slumped, and then sat down in front of the former detective. He looked like a predatory cat ready to toy with his prey some more, but when he leaned forward and presented Blake with a small tool kit, the former detective realized it was worse than that: Bane was ready to get down to business.

"Unless you feel the need to debate the trivialities of your current predicament further," Bane said, passing the tool kit to Blake, "I suggest you begin. The sooner you fulfill your end of the bargain, the sooner I will provide you with the means of counteracting Strange's experiment."

Blake's hands were bloodied and shaking as he took the kit in his hands, but Bane didn't seem the least bit concerned by it. On the contrary, he looked completely at ease, settled with the situation, as if Blake's hands were steady as a surgeon's. Even when Blake fumbled with the latch, the mercenary didn't seem to mind. He just tore off his coat and shirt, turned round on the bed, and bared his back for Blake to see.

Bane's back was surprisingly smooth. There was a single scar lancing his spine, leading into a great inverted cross at his neck that disappeared into the straps and tubes of his mask. Blake could imagine some of the tools used to create the wounds, even had brief glimpses of the circumstance under which they were incurred. He felt his own back prickle and throb at the sight in something akin to sympathy, but Blake couldn't claim to know cruelty the same way Bane did. Not even Gotham had produced the rare kind of monsters it took to make that kind of mess on a person, and Blake was pretty familiar with Gotham's monsters.

Strange had affixed the Venom pump to Bane's mid-back, just to the right of the spine using a black leather strap. It was a simple enough mechanism, similar to a pumps used for administering chemotherapy drugs. Two tubes launched themselves from the upper left corner of the mechanism through Bane's flesh. A small window showed the dosage per hour beneath them while two vials of Venom, poison green, glowed softly from the center of the panel. They were inserted into a dial side by side. A couple turns would remove them completely, but Blake knew better than to do that. To deprive Bane's body of Venom suddenly, even if it was being counteracted by his anesthetic, could send the mercenary first into a violent detox and then definitely kill him. They had to do this slowly, over the course of a few hours. Blake would gradually reduce the dosage as quickly as he could and then remove the pump. He only hoped the antidote for his own procedure wasn't such a time-consuming process, or that Bane would give him the answers before it was too late.

He eased himself forward in his seat, biting back a scream, to get a closer look. Changing the dosage would be easy enough, no tools necessary. Strange had counted on Bane's inability to reach the pump or remove it, and so he had placed the controls on the device's left wall, easy enough for Blake to manipulate. There was still one area of concern though, one Blake wasn't quite sure he wanted to voice.

"Did Strange have any more Venom available?" he asked.

"Several cases of it," Bane replied, "located in Arkham."

"Good," Blake said, easing back into his chair. "We're going to need some. The vials in the pump are nearly empty. Even if I gradually decrease the dosage, the Venom's gonna run out before you're weaned off of it completely."

The air seemed to leave the room at that moment, and Bane went very, very still in front of him. Blake understood immediately. For such an imposing man, Bane was at his most threatening when he wasn't moving. Calmness and poise were always anticipations of violence, not promises to the contrary. Before the mercenary could make his move then, Blake grabbed the Venom pump with both hands and gave it a small tug, causing the tubes to pull on whatever they were attached to inside Bane's body.

The mercenary twitched. Infinitesimally. Blake knew pain when he saw it. Message received.

"Touch me," Blake said, "and I'll tell this thing out."

"Then we will both die."

"We don't have to. Get me the Venom. I can fix this."

"So desperate," Bane commented, voice lilting slightly with amusement. Blake wasn't sure if it was in response to his threat or his offer to fix the problem. "What is it, I wonder, that compels you to live, little one?"

Blake kept his hands fixed on the corners of the pump. "I want to go home." He thought he heard Bane chuckle; Blake didn't care. "We just need four more vials to make this work."

A slight shift of Bane's massive body saw the pump out of Blake's grasp. Blake reached for it, but his back stopped him, flaring with renewed vigor to the point where his vision was tinged with red. He groaned - from the lost opportunity, from the rising pressure in his chest – and tried again, lashing out with all his strength at the only card he had left to play.

Bane caught Blake's face in both his massive hands: one over his mouth, the other clamped all-too-tightly over the back of his head. Blake held himself steadily under the mercenary's grip, forcing himself to look his tormentor in the eye when their faces were made level with one another. _I'm not going to die here_, Blake told himself. He tried to send that message to Bane through his stare, but the mercenary didn't seem to be looking for shows of strength like that. Or stupidity.

Instead, Bane sent his own non-verbal message to Blake, pulling the smaller man's head up and tilting it up just enough to send his lower back into a spasm again. Blake went immediately into a fit. He threw his arms against Bane's in every manoeuvre he knew – punches, chops, elbows – but all he ended up doing was hurting himself; the slightest jostle of Bane's arms rattled the pain to life, sending it snaking through his central nervous system with a vengeance. Blake's left leg thrashed against the floor to find purchase. The heat was becoming unbearable. Like a white hot poker thrust deeper and deeper into the muscle. Like some kind of animal digging their claws into him and _twisting_.

"Your skills do not grant you power here, little one."

Blake fixed his hands on Bane's wrists and tried to pull his head out of the vice grip, but every way he turned, the mercenary offered resistance. Bane shook him until his eyes opened and they were staring at each other again. "You survive by my will because you are useful, not because you intimidate me. I will crush you, if I wish. None of your idle threats can dissuade me."

There wasn't enough room in Blake's chest for air anymore. He screamed long and loud against Bane's hand, a muffled, broken wail barely louder than their speaking voices had been before. He couldn't feel his fingertips anymore, making it difficult to keep fighting with Bane's indestructible, unmoveable arm. But he had to try. Had to fight.

At some point – Blake had lost track of time again – when he had gone completely limp, when his yelling had become sobbing and pain was the only thing he knew, whe he was sufficiently broken, Bane spoke again. His crackled voice was measured, with the same calm and poise he used to declare martial law with: "I will procure the Venom; you will honour our arrangement. Stay quiet, little one, while I am gone. Strange's men will be searching for the sounds of screaming, and I reserve the right to kill you myself."

Blake fell back into the chair when Bane released him. His limbs were shaking so violently from the exertion that he almost fell out of his seat. He ran a hand over his face, gritting his teeth, pulling himself together for one last angry glare at Bane. The mercenary, however, was finished with their conversation. He stalked out of the room and shut the door quietly behind him.

The pain had clouded his already murky thought process, but a small thought nagged Blake from his delirium. He raised his head slowly, fighting dizziness and the urge to cry out, and stared hard at the door, waiting. Beyond the sound of his own ragged breathing, Blake heard nothing but the faint sounds of footsteps retreating into the hospital.

Bane, he realized, had not locked the door.

* * *

Happy reading!


	5. Chapter Four

Disclaimer: The characters and concepts in this story are the property of DC Comics, Christopher Nolan, and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.

Summary: After Hugo Strange uses him as a test subject for an experiment in the Narrows, John Blake ends up owing his life to Bane and relying on him to survive. Several years post-_TDKR_. AU.

Author's Notes: This chapter's more introspective than anything else. I thought I might give Blake a break before Bane comes back. Thanks to all the new followers – raventhearcher25 and franny 93 - and those that added the story to their favourites. Please, enjoy!

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Chapter Four

What had Gordon said? Detectives weren't allowed to believe in coincidence? Blake eyed the door blearily and stopped thanking his lucky stars. Bane wasn't the type to overlook minor details. He left the door unlocked because he knew Blake wasn't going anywhere, not with a debilitating back injury and some unknown experimental substance filtering through his veins. Or because there was nowhere for Blake to go. That explanation seemed just as likely. Blake was barely a match for Strange's men at what passed for his full strength these days. Facing down all the horrors the Narrows had to offer was just a good way to get killed.

Still, Blake rode out the last waves of pain with the knowledge that he would, at least, have a moment to investigate his surroundings. Maybe find a way to get a message to the cave. Find something to take the edge off his back. He used the chair as leverage and pushed himself into a standing position, fighting vertigo and nausea the whole way. His spine wasn't happy with having to carry him after being so recently manhandled, but Blake grit his teeth, sucked it the hell up, and got vertical.

He spent the next few minutes propped against the back of the chair: skull pounding, vision reeling, stomach churning, back burning, trying to hold it together long enough to get his bearings. The room finally, mercifully stilled, but the floor beneath his feet seemed to pulse in time with his heart. Blake focused on the walls and only the walls as he hobbled to the door.

The wing was quiet, ne'er as Blake could tell, but he still waited several long moments before opening the exam room door onto the hallway just to be sure. Minimum security would be an odd place to find Strange's men, he decided. The doctor would need the holding cells in maximum security for his Venom experiments, not to mention the laboratories and pharmacies for storing and mixing his compounds. He peered out into the dimly lit hallway and found it vacant as expected, but the darkened doorways facing him made Blake wary. He would have to be careful.

Using the chair in place of his useless right leg, Blake limped out into the hallway. There was a reception desk miles away at the end of the corridor, but even a cursory glance showed it had very little to offer by way of communications. A whole cluster of cables were draped over the counter having been torn from the computers and phone by whoever ransacked the place. Blake sighed, tried to console himself with the thought that he didn't have the strength to walk all the way down the hall anyways. Oddly enough, that didn't make him feel any better.

There was a small supply cupboard across the half from the examination room; that became Blake's first stop. Most of the boxes had been ransacked. Anything and everything that generated a high had been taken for sale on the streets or for mobs' private stashes. There was a small stack of new patient uniforms though and a couple bottles of disinfectant left on the shelves though. He grabbed one, a few clean towels, a clean t-shirt, and the last of the acetaminophen before leaving the room.

The mirrors in the nearby bathroom had each been broken by a single blow, likely a punch if Blake wasn't mistaken, and he hoped the parties responsible weren't on their way back to finish the job. He propped himself up in front of the least damaged mirror, gripping the sink with both hands to compensate for his right leg, and tried to find himself in the reflection. The man staring back at him was a sorry sight: blood and mucous caked from brow to chin, bruising on his neck from where someone tried to strangle him, tear streaks over his cheeks and into his hair. Blake's bottom lip quivered and he had to look away. It had been four years since someone had really done a number on him, even longer than that since he had to deal with the aftermath of a beating by himself. He had forgotten how hard it was to be broken when there was no one else around to help put him back together again. Worse, when there was no way of contacting someone who could.

His fingers grazed the incision on his thigh where Strange had removed the tracking device, and then they rose to explore the back of his neck. Blake wanted to stop, wanted to clean himself up and get back to the room, but he couldn't help himself. He had to know. Sure enough, his fingers brushed a swollen area on the right side no larger than a quarter. When he cleaned off the blood, he could easily see a small bruised puncture wound in the centre from Strange's experiment.

Blake grabbed the frayed hem of his ruined t-shirt and slowly eased it off. His whole back protested the movement, but he fought his stiff shoulders and throbbing scars, his tender face and neck, until the garment hung at his elbows. He tossed it aside. Tried the tap and got nothing but dirty water, so he wet a cloth with some antiseptic and started cleaning. First his face, which was surprisingly unharmed beneath the layers and layers of blood. He choked up when he cleared his neck, partly from the growing pressure, but more from the sight of bruises in the shape of handprints from a strangulation he couldn't remember. Memories of smoke and ashes, of a glowing face in the dark, nearly brought him to his knees after that. Blake ended up in the chair gasping for breath, one hand pressed tightly over the injection site. He really couldn't remember anything else, not how he got to Arkham or where Strange had nabbed him from or what Strange had done to him. Nothing.

He dribbled some disinfectant over his shoulders and collarbone to clean the wounds where...what was it Bane had said? The ceiling hit him? Blake's neck pulsed again at the thought, but his memory offered no clues. The smell of smoke felt familiar, firelight, chaos, and then a warm and merciful darkness. Nothing conclusive. Fragments, again, as fractured and distorted as the broken mirrors. Blake scrubbed his frustrations away with the rest of the blood on his chest, hissing through the sparks of pain that emerged when the disinfectant hit an open wound or he applied pressure to a bruise. He kept hoping to find a trigger, but all he ended up doing was rubbing his skin raw.

Blake propped himself up on his good leg then and circled in front of the mirror, trying to find anything else that might jog his memory. He ran his hands over his shoulder blades, his biceps, his waist, and then, somewhat masochistically, dared to let his fingers brush over the mess of scar tissue on his lower back. His nerve endings flared to life warningly; Blake was playing with fire, and he was going to get burned if he wasn't careful. He couldn't help himself though. He traced the long scar of a surgical incision with his fingertips and brought them to rest, in spite of himself, over the great puckered circle of scarring next to his spine. The final resting place of the bullet that ended it all.

The face in the mirror twisted. Trembled. Because the only thing harder than holding back was giving into what he was feeling. Vulnerability and weakness had become his bedfellows in the years following his forced retirement, but Blake had done his best to combat them. Now they were back again with a vengeance, and he had nothing to use in his defence. He was alone with little chance of rescue, Strange had turned him into a ticking time bomb of an experiment, and his only hope for escape was a madman who would just as soon tear his throat out as save his life.

Blake set his jaw and tried to remember himself. He had once been the Nightwing, protector of Gotham; before that, Blake gripped the sink for support, he had been a damn good cop and helped save a city from the same madman he found himself at the mercy of now. He could survive this. He _would _survive this. Hell, he'd see Bane and every other lowlife in the Narrows locked up at Arkham before the night was through.

He glanced into the mirror hoping to see Nightwing's half-cocked smirk or that hardened Detective's stare, but all he saw was a tired, trembling face and broken glass. Coincidence? Blake rolled his eyes. Nope, thought not.

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Happy reading!


	6. Chapter Five

Disclaimer: The characters and concepts in this story are the property of DC Comics, Christopher Nolan, and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.

Summary: After Hugo Strange uses him as a test subject for an experiment in the Narrows, John Blake ends up owing his life to Bane and relying on him to survive. Several years post-TDKR. AU.

Author's Notes: Thank you to L van Am for following!

Some of the details revolving around Blake's gunshot wound are lifted from the comic books. I won't say which one – I do so want it to be a surprise – but I cannot take credit for the circumstances under which he was injured. They are the property of Alan Moore.

I've said too much.

Constructive criticism is always appreciated! Flames are always ignored.

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Chapter Five

Knock, knock.

Who's there?

BANG!

Blake wasn't sure what hurt more: the hole in his gut or the sound of the bastard laughing. He hit the floor of his apartment, blood pouring out of him in a great fiery rush, and tried to defend himself against the three dark figures invading his apartment. The feeling in his fingertips slipped away quickly though, as did the strength in his arms, and he quickly succumbed to shock. The next few moments existed as flashbulb memories, still images that were burned into the back of his mind.

...a razor slashing through his clothing.

...fingers creeping below the surface of his skin.

...a disposable camera fixed against a clown's twisted face.

"Say cheese."

Exam light beating down on him. Strange's face in the darkness looming, hand poised at Blake's neck. The whirring sound returned, as did the ghostly spark of gunshots, and Blake started fighting, pounding away at Strange's arms and chest before the doctor could get any closer.

One very powerful hand gathered his wrists in their grasp, while another came to rest on his chest to restrain him. The strength behind the touch pierced through Blake's delirium. He wasn't fighting Strange; he was thrashing uselessly against Bane.

Blake collided with reality after that: hot and heaving, and then chilled and shivering a second later. The temperature of the exam room oscillated rapidly between frigid and sweltering. Not a good sign, but Blake couldn't think of anything long enough to remember why. He was too busy fixating on the brightness of the exam light, the shadows crawling across the walls of the room, and the gigantic mercenary who was poised to crush his sternum into his spinal cord with a little push of his hand.

Bane's hands were scorching against his chest and wrists, offering some respite from the chill in the room, but not much. Blake's body was covered in cold sweat, making the air feel all the chillier. "You're burning up with fever," Bane noted, articulating the swirling mess of nonsense thoughts in the smaller man's head. Blake tried to make some witty comeback, but he was transfixed by the small, wispy strands of smoke he thought he saw rising from Bane's mask.

Yet another bad sign.

"I'm fine," Blake shirked away from Bane's hand. The mercenary held fast.

"Your neck is swollen."

Blake hadn't noticed, but now he felt it: the stiffness of the muscles, the inflammation. The injection site burned. Strange's experiment was starting to take effect, whatever that meant. "You're running out of time," Blake muttered, shutting his eyes tightly as his vision spun and careened wildly out of control.

"_You're_ running out of time," Bane released him slowly. Blake pulled his arms to his chest and started to curl in on himself, part-defensive manoeuvre, part-attempt to warm himself. He opened his eyes when Bane's hand landed on his cheek and got an eyeful of poison green liquid. "I have procured the Venom necessary."

A few turns, Blake thought to himself, the first coherent thought he'd had since waking - that was all it would take. Then Bane would tell him what Strange had done, he'd get the antidote come what may, uphold his end of the bargain with the mercenary and find a way home. He reached up and took the vials in one hand. Bane settled into a sitting position on the end of the bed.

"How much time do I have?" Blake asked. He liked the way the Venom looked under the light. Like alien blood from old science fiction films.

"Less and less the longer you delay."

"How do I know..." he felt hot again, aching, needed a minute to get his bearings. "How do I know you'll tell me what Strange did, after I do this?"

"You don't," Bane said simply.

"You're not going to give me a reason to trust you?"

"You shouldn't trust me."  
"Do you trust me?"

"I trust your foolish mercy and compassion, your desperation to survive. You have been conditioned to betray yourself, little one, for the sake of others, even others who are unworthy. It's why you chose to defend Gotham, and why you chose to barter for your life in Strange's lab."

"You're saying you're unworthy?"

"I have failed in my mission to purge this rotten city from the world. My one true light was lost in the attempt. I have spent almost a decade in these desolate Narrows with madmen and psychopaths, rejects from your own mental facilities. There is no reason for you to save me except to save your own life."

"I saved your life once before," Blake pointed out.

"A debt I have since repaid many times over," Bane replied, "for which you have done very little in return."

Blake was not looking forward to sitting up. The bed, while not comfortable, was at least horizontal. He prepared himself as best he could, but he still only managed to rise several inches before fever, weakness, back and neck pain had him fall to the mattress again.

Bane caught Blake's wrists again, the younger man unable to resist from sheer exhaustion, and pulled him up by his arms. Somewhere, Blake thought he heard someone screaming, but their voice was quickly muffled by a heavy hand and hiss of a respirator. "Strange's men do not need to take you alive," Bane reminded Blake, "and I lack the mercy, compassion, and desperation not to leave you to them. When I let you go, you will be silent."

Blake decided that was true, but only because if Bane let him go, he might vomit. His stomach was being squeezed through his inflamed neck into his throat from all the pain in his lower back, and Blake tasted hot bile on the root of his tongue. He pursed his lips when Bane's hand disappeared and swallowed, swallowed, swallowed until the taste disappeared. The agony, however, only intensified. By the time he was upright, Blake was a blubbering, shivering wreck of a human being, held up only by the iron grip Bane maintained on his wrists.

The mercenary leaned forward suddenly, issuing another choked cry from the former detective in the process. Blake's mind was screaming about the end of days, about fire and brimstone, about all the terrible things Bane's shoulder would do to him. He went through his last rites in his mind as if Reilly were there with them, wishing that he hadn't pushed the family away after his injury, wishing he had told them about the surgery.

_Surgery_.

Blake didn't have time to ponder it, but the word was caught in his brain for a moment, along with a kind voice saying, "Just administering your first dose of anesthetic, Mr. Blake."

And then it was gone. Along with Bane's shoulder. Blake felt himself being eased down onto a stack of pillows arranged to hold him in a sitting position. His back was still in agony, but it was muffled somewhat by his neck, which pulsed hot and angry under Blake's chin. The mercenary had also turned around in front of him, placing the pump right in Blake's reach.

"Thank you," Blake muttered.

"It was necessary."

"Still – thank you."

Bane peered over his shoulder, his profile inhuman and menacing in the light. Blake thought he was going to get manhandled again, felt a twinge of fear that his attempt at being courteous would be seen as another delay, but Bane gave the slightest of nods. And that, apparently, was that.

Blake set the new vials on Venom on the bed and reached for the pump. His fingers fumbled over the device, stubbornly refusing to obey the commands sent from Blake's brain. The light was still too bright in his eyes, the room cold again, and twice his arms dropped into his lap, spent. Blake did not give himself the choice of giving up though. He used the pain in his neck to stay focused. Strange's serum was changing him, and he needed to know how. The only way to know how was to exchange the vials of Venom. So his arms had better start working, or else they were all going to die.

That seemed to be incentive enough for them. He managed to spin the two vials from the pump and replace them, fumbling only once, with the new vials. Blake then reached for the dials on the side and scrolled down the dosage to a reasonable amount for a first step.

"There," he said, spent. "I'll decrease the dosage again in a few hours. Let your body adjust. Now what the hell did Strange do to me?"

"Strange injected you with a serum derived from Venom," Bane said, rising from the bed. He grabbed one of Blake's arms and draped it over his massive shoulders, sliding his arm just under Blake's mid-back in the same movement.

"What are you doing?" Blake stiffened, moaning in pain from the pressure in his neck and spine. He put up as much of a fight as he could muster, but he might as well have been warring with a brick wall for all the damage he did. Bane had his legs hooked over his other arm by the time he finally stilled. He beseeched Bane breathlessly, fearing pain and whatever else was to follow, "Let me go. Please. Don't do this."

"You don't even know what I'm going to do."

Fever-addled as he was, Blake said, "I have a few ideas." This was the man that had broken Batman after all.

"Even if I were to administer the antidote for Strange's experiment now, your temperature will only burn hotter in the night. You will die long before the effects of the serum are reversed."

Blake was about to object, but Bane had already lifted him up.

The whole world disappeared in a great white out of pain, fear, and fever. Blake was aware of his own voice begging, pleading, though for what and how he didn't know. Words eluded him, thought confused him, feeling came in waves of hurt and sharps stings. He tried to focus, mind over matter like a pain specialist once taught him, but his mind was tapioca pudding and matter was a mountain of a mercenary.

Doors were being opened. Lights were being turned on. Blake felt himself descending onto cold tiles on his left side, wrecking his body with even more shivers. His mind spun like a spirograph on top of his aching neck. Bane's sweltering hand disappeared from his shoulder.

Taps squeaked.

Blake didn't have a scream left in him for when the water hit. A steady stream of cold, musty water poured over him, freezing him to the core. He tried to pull away, to curl up, to _anything_, but his bare foot slipped over the tiled floor uselessly and arms ended up coiled around his midriff. Bane yanked them loose and held them open to the water.

"Lie still. It will be over soon, little one."

"My name is John. John Blake." The fact that he wasn't little went unspoken, because anything was little in proximity to Bane.

"So the Nightwing has a name."

"Robin," Blake watched the water spin down the drain. The pain in his neck and back started to recede. Senselessness rose up to meet him.

From the darkness, he heard, "My name has always been Bane, little bird."

Only Bane would come up with a worse nickname for him than 'little one'.

* * *

Happy reading!


	7. Chapter Six

Disclaimer: The characters and concepts in this story are the property of DC Comics, Christopher Nolan, and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.

Summary: After Hugo Strange uses him as a test subject for an experiment in the Narrows, John Blake ends up owing his life to Bane and relying on him to survive. Several years post-TDKR. AU.

Author's Notes: I've been able to keep updating every three days so far, but between some traveling and NaNoWriMo, time got away from me a little bit with this chapter.

Thank you to LightningBlue, MsSpookiness, Sincerely Basil, penguinsfan18, and raventhearcher25 for following and/or favouriting; to Mrs. John Reese and Guest for the lovely reviews! Guest, I like seeing Bane's human side too, and I will try to go a little easier on Blake.

It's a pleasure to know that people are interested and enjoying the story. I hope the next installments are to your liking as well!

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Chapter Six

Blake buzzed in and out of consciousness for the next several beats. The tile under his cheek got warmer as his body temperature went into free fall. His grasp on reality started to strengthen; he wasn't flitting about through memories or getting lost in a jumble of thoughts anymore. The shivers had subsided too by the time Bane turned the taps again, but that could just as easily be from exhaustion. Blake felt tired all the way to his bones when it was all over, but he couldn't let himself sleep. His neck throbbed in reminder that he was running out of time, that the tickling sensation between his shoulder blades was an omen of bad things to come.

Still, he couldn't find the strength to say anything. Questions burned on Blake's tongue about Strange's experiment – what the serum was doing to him, how Strange had managed to stabilize Venom – but his body lacked the reserves to voice them. He ended up as a puppet on Bane's strings again, lifted out of the shower and brought to rest in a sitting position against the wall.

The room wasn't spinning anymore, but Blake couldn't keep his eyes open long enough to enjoy it.

"Did you allow him to live?"

A towel, bristled from age, landed in Blake's hands. He stared at it through a crack in his eyelids, unable to figure out what it was for until a chill ran through him again. He forced himself to dry his face and hair, battling weariness the whole while. "Who?"

"The man who shot you."

Blake's blood ran colder than the shower had been. He glared at Bane. "It's not for me to decide who lives or dies," Blake said. His exhaustion overwhelmed the ferocity of his tone. Bane was prodding old wounds again, this time a wound that had cut even deeper than the bullet ever could.

"You decided that I should live," Bane remarked casually.

"Yeah, well, I didn't get much of a choice with him," Blake scrubbed at his biceps until the skin was raw. The slow burn from friction dulled the inferno raging in his heart, but Blake could still feel it pulsing through his body. He tried telling Bane, "I am not an executioner," but the line sounded tired, forced, rehearsed. Even someone half as astute as Bane would hear the cracks and know the truth.

"Given the choice, would you have killed him?"

"No."

Blake pressed a fist against his chest, trying to ease the rising tide of rage within him. His whole body pulsed. Sometimes, his heart ached, the answer was yes.

"Had you the chance to kill him before he shot you?"

Bane was just playing with him now, and Blake was tired of losing. He changed the course of the conversation back to the aftermath of the shooting, not the events leading up to it. "They put him away," he spat, "Life in a maximum security holding cell at Arkham. No hope for release."

"That is no punishment for the wicked."

"Neither is death."

"Is that why you let me live?"

"I did what I had to do."

"But not what was necessary."

"So it was necessary to kill him? To kill you?"

Blake's memory was still fuzzy about the past twenty-four hours, but he could remember the end of the Occupation like it was yesterday. The sight of the nuclear blast on the horizon, the chill of snowflakes on his skin, walking down the once desolate blocks to see crowds of people swarming the streets in celebration...and he remembered the sight of one hulking mercenary limping into the underground under the cover of darkness. They stared at one another, cop and criminal, for what felt like an eternity. It took Bane turning away to snap Blake out of his reverie and get him to pull his gun.

His finger stayed on the safety the entire time, even when Bane finally walked away. Something inside held him back: the blood on Bane's back, glossy jet on the sheepskin of his coat, perhaps. Blake felt his own emptiness awakening inside him out of empathy too. Bane had lost more than a city that day. Shooting him just seemed cruel. That bullet wound was going to kill him eventually. It was only a matter of time.

So Blake didn't take the shot when Bane took another step forward into the darkness. He didn't call for back-up either, not until Bane had vanished completely from sight.

He still didn't know why. Not completely.

"I had a responsibility to you too," Blake said. He heard his heart thundering in his ears, causing his whole body to vibrate.

Bane tilted his head ever-so-slightly, curious. "What responsibility?"

"You didn't...you don't deserve to die."

"You believe my life is sacred?"

"Life _is _sacred."

"Even a life spent in agony?"

"_Even_," Blake choked on his next words. He tried to tell himself it was from the sheer audacity of Bane's question but doubt made his skin crawl. "Even a life spent in agony."

Bane was silent, either considering his answer or giving Blake time to re-evaluate it. He then rose and walked across the room towards the door and hallway beyond. Blake thought at first he was going to be abandoned again, but he watched in horror as Bane locked the door and shut off the lights.

The shower room descended into pitch blackness, illuminated only by the dim light of the floor lamps from the hallway streaming in through the wide observation window. For a moment, Bane's silhouette was visible, but then even that disappeared from sight.

Fear clutched Blake. He searched the darkness, but he strained to see anything but the empty hallway outside the window. The hammering of his heart was now beating out of time with the rest of his body, which continued to pulsate.

And that's when Blake realized the vibrations weren't coming from inside his chest; they were coming through the floor. Someone was making their way slowly down the hallway towards them, someone heavy enough to rattle the whole wing at Arkham.

There was nowhere to hide. Even the minimum security wing didn't allow patients to hide in private shower stalls. The whole room was open and visible from the window on the far side of the room. One glance inside, and even though the darkness, Blake would be visible to whomever _or whatever_ was thundering down the hall at that very moment. Humans weren't that large. Humans on Venom though...

Blake pressed his hands against the tile and fought the shaking of his limbs to drag himself forward though the dark. The closer he was to the door, the less likely he was to be seen. The floor rumbled threateningly with every step, the monster growing closer and closer with every passing second.

Before he could move though, Blake felt a massive hand wrap around his arm in the dark and hold him steady. He bit the insides of his cheeks to keep from making a sound. Bane, he told himself. Oxymoronic and ironic as it was, the grasping hand in the dark was just Bane. The familiar hiss of the respirator rewarded Blake's ears after a second or two of careful listening. How the big lug had crawled through the darkness without him noticing was disconcerting, but Blake didn't get a chance to ponder it. The footsteps were upon them.

Blake had read about the effects of Venom on individuals, even seen pictures of victims online. He remembered the malformed bodies – muscles swollen to unbelievable proportions, veins dyed green and bursting through the skin; the blank, milky eyes. Nothing would have prepared him for seeing one of the monsters in the flesh though. The light from the floor made the beast's bare chest glow eerie blue and painted his veins into spider webs with shadows. There was a black strap across his chest, like Bane, hugging his grotesque musculature. He almost took up the whole hallway with the girth of his shoulders, while his head sat atop them, comically small but plastered with a snarl so psychotically twisted that Blake felt nauseated.

He didn't even spare a glance for the window, the monster. The room didn't even exist to him. His milky white eyes were fixed straight ahead on the empty hallway, searching for something to tear apart and finding nothing. He disappeared behind the next wall and his footsteps traveled away.

Blake was still shaking even after the floor stopped vibrating. Strange had more Venom experiments wandering around Old Arkham.

The pain from his neck started to spread to his shoulders.

* * *

Happy reading!


	8. Chapter Seven

Disclaimer: The characters and concepts in this story are the property of DC Comics, Christopher Nolan, and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.

Summary: After Hugo Strange uses him as a test subject for an experiment in the Narrows, John Blake ends up owing his life to Bane and relying on him to survive. Several years post-TDKR. AU.

Author's Notes: Wow! The number of people who added the story to their favourites and started to follow for this chapter was incredible. It was the highlight of my week to log on and see a whole bunch of new names. Thank you! I'm happy you're enjoying the fic, and I hope you continue to do so.

I also have to thank the reviewers. Your comments were much appreciated.

* * *

Chapter Seven

"You told me that Strange's experiments died."

Bane stared at still locked door in silence, lost in thought. For a man of such physicality, he seemed to spend an awful lot of time thinking, Blake noticed. "I said _many_ of Strange's experiments died," Bane turned away and regarded the window with the same scrutiny. "Evidently some survived the fire in the laboratory."

Blake pinched the bridge of his nose. Whether it was Strange's serum or the emergence of a newer, bigger threat, he wasn't sure, but he felt the makings of a migraine stirring in his skull. They weren't equipped to deal with this. Not now. "How many are there?" he asked.

"Strange affixed seven of us with the pumps initially," Bane began to pace the length of the room. He occasionally stopped and inspected the tile. "Four died: two from exposure to Venom."

"And what about the other two?"

"I killed them."

"Oh," Blake wondered why he hadn't expected that answer. "So there are two more of those monsters wandering around Old Arkham. Great. Are there any other experiments I should know about?"

"Just yourself."

"And what did Strange do to me? You said he injected me with a serum derived from Venom. Why hasn't it killed me yet?"

"Strange's earlier test subjects died because their bodies could not support the rapid growth caused by the Venom. With you, he tempered the formula with a growth hormone so that your musculature will develop naturally to support the Venom modifications."

"So what I'm feeling right now is my pituitary gland going into overdrive, bulking me up? Like steroids?"

"Your body perceives it as an infection," Bane said it so casually, they might as well have been talking about the weather instead of Blake's life. "In time, your physiology will adjust to the changes."

"And then what happens?"

"You will become like him," Bane pointed towards the empty window. "A mindless shell of a being. Larger, I suspect, and more ill-tempered. Strange considered the serum his greatest achievement. You were to be his perfect weapon."

"I can barely walk."

"Strange was likely counting on the regenerative properties of the Venom to amend the damage to your spine."

Blake waited for some kind of reassurance to follow, for Bane to reiterate his promise about providing Blake with the cure, but none was forthcoming. Bane had settled back into his thoughtful silence, pondering the room.

The bullet weighed down on his nerve endings like a cannon ball, but there were too many things to worry about beyond his own physical well being that Blake was utterly overwhelmed. He was turning into a zombie on steroids, some kind of enraged killing machine, and there was no telling whether Bane was going to help him or not. There were two Venom monsters prowling Old Arkham, who could reap all kinds of havoc on the Narrows and the city if they found a way out.

Strange's men were still looking for them.

The GCPD didn't come to the Narrows anymore.

The family had no way of tracking him.

Blake ran a shaking hand over his face. Strange's serum or stress, his head was killing him, pounding with uncertainty and confusion about what problem was more deserving of his attention. Bane's pump would need to be adjusted in another couple of hours; he would need a sound mind and body to do that. Unfortunately, that kind of waiting gave Strange's men time to find them, and it gave the Venom experiments time to find their way out of Arkham.

"We have to stop those experiments," Blake decided at long last.

Bane almost laughed. Almost. "There's is no 'we', little bird."

"Those things will tear the city apart."

For a man whose face was half obscured by a mask, Bane's smile was still visible in his dark eyes. "A death too late to be considered merciful, but justified nonetheless."

"There are good people in Gotham."

"If they are worthy, they will survive the storm Strange has promised to the city."

"I can't let that happen," Blake pressed his hands so hard against the wall the knuckles went white and his fingers were sore. He pried himself into a weak standing position, wrecked with tremors and in agonizing pain the whole way. "I need to get a message to my people. They have to know what's going on here."

"I will not let you invite your hoard of birds and bats here," Bane replied.

"I'll keep up my end of the deal, alright? But I can't let those monsters get out of Old Arkham and into Gotham."

"And what will your cavalry do with me when they arrive? You will not pry the name of Strange's cure from me when I am being transported to maximum security at New Arkham."

Blake brought his head to rest against the wall, his neck screaming, his shoulders stiffened and throbbing. He felt hot all over again, like he had in the exam room, but this kind of fever burned him all the way to his soul. "You are going to New Arkham either way," he told the ceiling in a quiet voice, bracing himself for the attack that followed.

Bane had broken him quite sufficiently though and didn't see the need to maim Blake any further. "The Narrows is a prison for me already, little bird."  
The walls of the room felt like they were closing in on him, and Blake was overwhelmed with the desire to be home. In the cave. At his crummy apartment. Somewhere familiar. He wanted this to be a terrible dream or a half-forgotten memory, not a confusing, awful reality where there was no escape. Blake had debilitating back pain, a paralyzed leg, and a spiking temperature. He was no match for anyone, even himself.

Except...

Blake tried to stop himself, but the idea was already forming. He wasn`t going to be physically helpless for much longer. Strange's serum was going to give him the physicality he needed to stand up to Bane and stop the Venom experiments, or at least contact the family for back-up. "How long do I have?" he asked. "Before I lose my mind?"

"Strange was unclear. Within twenty-four hours at any rate. You have approximately eighteen hours left before the changes are complete."

"I'm going to need most of that to detox you from Venom anyways," Blake hugged himself to keep from buckling under his shivers. "I might still have a chance."

"Not a chance I'm willing to take," Bane said, advancing on Blake. He withdrew a folded leather pouch from his pocket and held it up to the younger man like a lure. "I cannot allow you to lose your mental faculties when you still have surgery to conduct on my spine."

"I thought you didn't care whether you lived or died?"

"I told you I do not welcome death," Bane reminded him, "and I have already invested so much in your survival, it would be a waste to see you die now."

"I won't let those things leave Arkham," Blake promised him. "You'll have to kill me right now to keep me from trying. And even if you were willing to help, that guy looked like he had about a hundred pounds of solid, Venom-infused muscle on you."

Blake stopped Bane before he could speak again, something he would likely pay for later but he no longer cared about whether he did or not. "Look, you've got the antidote. You can stop me at any time, I get that. But if I can't let those things take the city. All you have to do is let these changes happen. By the time I'm physically ready to take on Strange's monsters, I'll have honoured our little arrangement."

Bane was silent as the grave. Even his respirator seemed to have stopped hissing. Blake glanced between the mercenary's face and the pouch, trying not to show the fear in his face that Bane would cure him before he had a fighting chance. As appealing as it would be to go back to his horrendous, painful normal, Blake had a duty to fulfill to Gotham, and Strange had given him the opportunity to do it.

The pouch disappeared again into Bane's pocket. Blake searched the mercenary's dark gaze for what that meant, but Bane's gaze was impassive, unreadable. Threatening in its blankness. Blake found himself actually hoping that however Bane chose to assault him, he would get knocked unconscious again. His headache had reached a splitting pitch.

Bane leaned his head towards Blake and, in a conspiratorial hiss, said, "I have a much better idea, little bird."

Blake closed his eyes, partly from defeat but mostly from exhaustion. "You usually do."

He didn't even try to fight when Bane took hold of him again and dragged him out of the room.

* * *

Happy reading!


	9. Chapter Eight

Disclaimer: The characters and concepts in this story are the property of DC Comics, Christopher Nolan, and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.

Summary: After Hugo Strange uses him as a test subject for an experiment in the Narrows, John Blake ends up owing his life to Bane and relying on him to survive. Several years post-TDKR. AU.

Author's Notes: I cannot thank the people who follow this story and added it to their favourites enough. Reviewers, I owe you my gratitude as well. I like writing, but it is comforting to know that there is an audience out there who enjoys reading my work. Thank you for your support!

I am almost at the scene that inspired this whole story and will explain a lot of the context. Enjoy this installment in the mean time!

* * *

Chapter Eight

The idea seemed to come from nowhere, but Blake's reaction was the same: he needed to get out.

Out of this room.

Out of his skin.

Too small...too small...he pounded his aching back against the wall to create more space, but he couldn't break through. The room just throbbed right back at him under his shoulder blades, cushioned by white, pillowy fabric that closed in around him from all sides.

He needed an opening. The pressure in his shoulders and neck was too much. A little cut would be enough to relieve it. Just a split, right along the spine, let the fluid and the heat pour out of him. That would make him all better; that would give his body the room it needed to grow. Blake fumbled to reach his back, shoulders stiff and arms limp, desperately trying to relieve the pressure before it crushed the life out of him. He pulled his skin and pounded his back against the wall, praying something would snap. A little cut. A little tear. He needed a way out.

Blake dropped to the floor, face dripping with sweat and tears, fighting to hold himself together against the overwhelming urge to rip himself apart. He told himself the usual: that the pain was a symptom, that it would pass, that he just needed to ride out the next couple of hours; that Bane had to come back for him eventually, that the mercenary would not leave him to die a monster in a padded cell at Old Arkham. The aggression, the self-destructive urges: they were all symptoms of Strange's serum. Blake just had to fight it for a little while longer, until he could remove the pump from Bane and take care of the other experiments.

How long that might be though, Blake had no idea. He could only measure time in events. Being dragged down a flight of stairs to a deserted area in minimum security. Being tossed into a padded cell and left alone. Blake had shouted at Bane, searched for the door but couldn't find it, and then settled into a corner to wait. At some point, he had removed his t-shirt, because his back had swelled up to the point where it no longer fit. After that, his moments of lucidity became short and fragmented. He spent most of his time and remaining energy throwing himself against the walls in some mad attempt to break out of his own, all-too-small body and this all-too-small room.

Groan. Gasp. His arms jerked back from the strain. Muscles bulged against the flesh of his back. He kicked again with his working leg despite himself, hoping that this time it would work. This time the skin would break. The padded wall dulled the impact to the point where he could barely feel it though. Nothing but the relentless ache left by Strange's serum. Blake punched the floor. He should just rest. Just go to sleep. Bane would wake him up when it was time to decrease the dosage on the pump again. Blake could pretend he was still his normal...

He kicked his back into the wall again.

"DAMN IT," Blake cursed. Christ, all he wanted was to tear this room apart. Rip the padding off the walls, kick the door from its hinges, tackle the concrete and sheet metal all the way to the insulation and then keep going. The fact that he couldn't just made the urge stronger, along with the thought that soon he might be big enough to give it a fair try.

"Bane's coming back," Blake reminded himself. Yet another mistake, since he was very quickly filled with thoughts of ripping the mercenary to pieces. Breaking his spine and leaving him for dead. Tears open that scar and seeing what was underneath. Blake could put a smile on that lizard face. Slide his hands through Bane's lips and pull till the mercenary's head was inside out.

"STOP."

Blake thought about his first moment in the cave. He remembered the thrill of wind and water rushing against his face, the flurry of bats, the podium rising under his feet drawing him up to his new destiny. He catalogued all the little details: what the suit felt like, the gadgets he used, the smells and sounds of the cave. Learning to drive the bike for the first time. Flying over rooftops in the city. The codes for the computer. "That's who I am," Blake reminded himself. A protector. A dark knight. Not some mindless, killing machine. Some mad scientist's experiment. He was stronger than Venom. He would resist it. When Bane came back into the room, Blake wouldn't ask for the antidote. He would see this crazy, stupid, reckless plan through to fruition.

Even if it tore him apart to do it.

The old locks squeaked, and the sound nearly snapped Blake back into his claustrophobic frenzy. He sobered slightly when Bane slipped in from behind the padded door. The mercenary hadn't forgotten him then, which meant there was hope to his foolish plan yet...if Blake could keep his head on straight for a little longer.

His eyes were fixed on the door though, and Blake couldn't pull them away. _Out_. He needed to get out.

"It appears as if the good doctor's serum has already influencing your cognition," Bane noted, prodding an area of the padded wall to Blake's right. The former detective glanced over to where Bane was standing, eyeing the torn fabric with only mild interest before looking back at the door.

The room was too small for the both of them, and at this distance, Blake stood a good chance to making it before Bane caught him.

"John."

The sound of his name slashed through his consciousness, clearing his mind at long last. Blake could still feel his new urges nagging, vying for supremacy, but they were secondary to his own thought process, to his own self-awareness. The pain would pass if he rode it out long enough. Bane hadn't left him to do. He could do this: he could still save Gotham.

He let out a pained cry and reached for his spine again, trying to tear. "I just...need..." his skin was stretched to its limit. The muscles started to bombard his chest from behind, crushing the air from his lungs. _Ride it out_, _ride it out..._like he had at the hospital after the shooting, when the nerve damage was at its worst. Blake just kept breathing through it raggedly. "Whatever you do," he growled at Bane, voice strangled from the pressure in his neck, "whatever I say, don't give me the antidote."

The mercenary sank to his knees next to Blake, silent as usual. He placed a very large hand on the smaller man's brow. Blake basked in the coolness of Bane's palm, remembering and then promptly not caring that every time he found himself in the mercenary's hands, only pain seemed to result. Nothing Bane could do to him now – not folding him or dragging him or tossing him or anything – could hurt more than what his body was going through.

"It is a wonder how this city can seduce so many capable men to protect her at their own expense," Bane lamented. He withdrew his hand, leaving Blake to roast inside of his own body again.

"Almost sounds like you're worried about me," Blake found himself staring at the door again. He could make a run for it. Push Bane out of the way. Dismantle the whole building.

Focus, John.

"Your well-being is of interest to me. It has been three hours since you decreased the dosage."

"Right," the walls were closing in on him. Focus. Focus. "I can take care of it."

He pulled his eyes from the door. Bane was still kneeling nearby, inert but not intimidating, not to Blake at least. He could take Bane. Make him pay. Tear him up.

Blake's heart pounded in his chest. No more focusing. He wasn't Nightwing anymore.

He hopped up onto his only working leg.

Bane's forearm slammed into his chest and drove him back into the wall.

"I need out!"

"I told you I had my own idea," Bane said.

A needle. Blake saw it in Bane's hands. Now he was focused. "NO! No, please. I can survive this."

"Yes," Bane agreed, "And you will, with your cognitive faculties intact."

"I HATE YOU!" Blake shoved a hand against Bane's mask. His rage had him nearly foaming at the mouth. "I WILL BREAK YOU! I WILL TEAR YOU TO PIECES!"

He thought he heard Bane laughing. "You can certainly try, little bird."

Needle stick. Into his good thigh.

Bane wanted him to feel it.

* * *

Happy reading!


	10. Chapter Nine

Disclaimer: The characters and concepts in this story are the property of DC Comics, Christopher Nolan, and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.

Summary: After Hugo Strange uses him as a test subject for an experiment in the Narrows, John Blake ends up owing his life to Bane and relying on him to survive. Several years post-TDKR. AU.

Author's Notes: I am not a doctor and I'm only a half-decent researcher, so I sincerely apologize for any and all inaccuracies I've depicted here in terms of Blake's physical condition. In my defense, _The Dark Knight Rises_ takes place in a universe where hanging from a rope and getting punched in the spine will cure a broken back. Hopefully my hackneyed descriptions will not offend your willful suspension of disbelief too much.

Special thank you to the reviewers and those that followed/favourite the story. As always the support is encouraging, and I hope you enjoy the next installments!

* * *

Chapter Nine

Blake was no stranger to narcotics, barbiturates, and sedatives by that point. He had been on every painkiller cocktail Gotham General could concoct before trying out some of the designer combinations offered by the pain clinics in the State. The best were the experimental drugs, the ones that blacked out whole weeks of his life or made milliseconds feel like eternities; they played with Blake's perception of time to the point where he forgot that he had a body, let alone one that was broken.

But whatever Bane stuck him with was a whole new breed of narcotic. The drug ploughed so swiftly and cleanly through his Venom induced rage that Blake barely registered the sudden loss of strength in his limbs. One minute he was locked in a fierce battle with Bane's mask, and the next he had slumped forward lifelessly, numb and dizzy and drained. Blake's eyes peeled back in his skull while his head lolled against Bane's forearm. He was vaguely aware of his hand falling to his side again, but everything had gotten so dreamy and unreal that Blake really couldn't be certain...or bothered to care for that matter.

He didn't pass out, for which he was grateful. The relief that followed was unlike anything he had felt before. No drug had ever managed to quell the angry throb in his back completely, but this one had shut every nerve in his body down. All Blake's pain receptors fell silent. He basked in the glory of absolute painlessness, welcoming it like an old friend. This was the body he had left behind years ago, the body they said he would never have again. Blake didn't care if he couldn't move, didn't care how helpless he was. If Bane wanted him dead, so be it: Blake would die right here, right now, in perfect peace.

"That stuff..." Blake slurred, "...issstrong..."

"It was created for my physiology," Bane replied, sliding his forearm from Blake's front. Blake felt himself bring moved but _so did not care_, even as he slopped against the floor in a boneless heap, because he didn't feel any of it. No spasms in his spine, no throbbing in his neck and shoulders, nothing. Pain was just a distant memory, some bad dream. Blake's real life was this slippery state of consciousness he'd entered, where the white walls spun lazily before his eyes and life itself felt perfectly optional.

Blake was lost in a daze. "...you took over Gotham on this?"

He felt the mercenary's fingers on his wrist, checking for a pulse. "Clearly, I overestimated the size of your body even with Strange's enhancements."

"I'm not little."

Bane ignored him. "The euphoria will pass in a few moments."

Blake let his eyes close, clinging to senselessness with all the strength he could barely muster. "I better enjoy this while it lasts then."

"I will administer a larger dose so that you might sleep through the worst of the pain after you have made the adjustments to the pump."

"What about...the rage?" Blake asked worriedly. He hadn't felt anything quite like the anger he had felt before, not even after losing his parents. "I can't help you if I'm a monster."

"The drugs should combat the psychological effects of the Venom," Bane replied.

Of course, Blake thought. He was on the same cocktail Bane was using. While that wouldn't suppress Strange's growth hormone, it would suppress his aggression and allow him to maintain self-control.

"How long have you been in pain?" Bane asked.

"Four years...two months...give or take a couple of weeks..." Not that Blake had been counting.

"The bullet hit your spinal column."

"Sciatic nerve," Blake corrected him. He cast one weary glance at the mercenary to make sure he was going to keep his hand, Bane having kept a steady albeit gentle grip on it for what felt like an eternity now. Bane responded with his usual disinterest though. He would hold Blake's wrist as long as he needed to and let go when it pleased him. Blake's eyes closed again of their own accord before he felt his hand lay safely on his abdomen, still attached. His mouth kept moving too, also of its own accord. "The damage is irreparable. The pain is chronic."

"That would not cause your paralysis," Bane noted.

The anesthetic kept Blake from resisting the prompt. "No," he muttered tiredly. "That was corrective surgery. Doctors tried to install a nerve block to numb the pain...and they did that. A little too well."

He made a sound that was as much as a laugh as it was a cry. As far as rude awakenings went, it wasn't Blake's worst. He had initially thought the loss of sensation was a side effect of the anesthetic. His left leg soon started echoing the agony from his damaged spine though, while the right just lay there, useless and silent, as still as Bane was right now.

"What about you?"

A respirator hiss was his only response. Blake forced his tired eyes open just a crack, wondering if Bane was going to answer him. The mercenary had tilted his head just slightly to the side. Blake just hoped he was asking for clarification and not pondering the best way to dismember the former detective.

"You," Blake stumbled for words. He gestured to his face before he could successfully craft the sentence. "What's the mask for?"

Bane's head resumed its upright position. "Corrective surgery," he replied simply.

"For what? A fight?"

Now Bane wasn't going to answer him. Blake sighed and settled back in on himself, ignoring how clears his thoughts were becoming. Just as Bane had predicted, the euphoria was starting to dissipate. The pain was coming back, and the violent tendencies were sure to follow.

"Who was it that shot you?"

Blake shook his head. "No," he bit his tongue, "I asked you a question first."

"What does it matter how I was injured?"

"I could ask you the same question."

Bane's eyes had taken on a more menacing quality again, but Blake was too numb to worry about his innards this time. He waited, allowing the hiss of Bane's respirator to lull him back into a pleasant, painless doze.

Blake was almost asleep when Bane spoke again. "It was a prison brawl."

"That wasn't so hard, was it?"

Oh, if looks could kill...Bane didn't turn his head, just glanced at when Blake was lying on the floor. "The man who shot you."

Threat, not a question. Blake swallowed the lump in his throat. "He doesn't have a real name," he admitted, stalling because he didn't want to utter his shooter's alias. Phantom razors danced over his arms and chest, making Blake want to crawl out of his own skin. They could have talked about anything else or nothing at all, but Bane had naturally picked the one topic that slashed Blake to pieces. Almost literally. "He goes by the Joker."

"The Clown Prince of Crime."

Bane's crackled, regal baritone almost made him sound like a true monarch. Blake's face twisted in disdain. "That would be him."

"The man who crippled the Nightwing."

More increasingly terrible nicknames. "You really got a thing for theatrics," Blake said bitterly.

"You were once a costumed vigilante, the Batman's successor."

Blake had to concede on that point. "Touché."

They went a long while without speaking after that, but Blake didn't find himself nodding off anymore. He started to feel a lot clearer, more in control than he had for hours now, years even. His back wasn't an angry mess of raw nerves, his left leg didn't throb endlessly with pain, the pressure in his chest was gone, his neck and shoulders no longer stretching to beyond their capacity. The last time Blake felt this awake was the night of his last patrol, just before Joker darkened his doorway. Since then, life was a blur of pain and pain management techniques, but none left his vision and cognition as crystal clear as this. Blake could have taken over Gotham on a cocktail like this. There were days when he _would_ have taken over Gotham for a cocktail like this.

"What prison were you in?" Blake dared to ask. The last vestiges of his high were beginning to clear, but he wanted to know what place on earth could have created a monster like Bane.

The mercenary was not going to reply at first, judging by his profile, but after a long beat, he finally responded, "It is hell on earth."

"Worse than Gotham?"

A slight chuckle. "Far worse than Gotham. In Gotham, there is no light, no hope for escape, not for me, but in the Pit, hope is all there is."

"What's wrong with hope?" Blake wondered.

"Hope is an illusion. A promise unkept."

"I don't believe that."

"No," Bane replied, "You choose to believe instead that a psychotic with a history of violent behaviour would not shoot you if given the opportunity. That a group of doctors would be able to successfully block the pain from nerve damage. That you can stop Strange's monsters before they tear Gotham apart."

Right argument, wrong time, Blake thought, balling his hands into fists. "I can't just lie here and do nothing," he said darkly, and then amended that statement with, "for the rest of the night."

Bane didn't even bother to laugh that time. "You would do battle with two chemically enhanced beasts of burden armed with only an iron will and foolish hope."

Blake's face formed itself into his hardened detective's stare with just a hint of Nightwing's trademark grin. "Where," he asked, "do you think an iron will comes from?"

* * *

Happy reading!


	11. Chapter Ten

Disclaimer: The characters and concepts in this story are the property of DC Comics, Christopher Nolan, and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.

Summary: After Hugo Strange uses him as a test subject for an experiment in the Narrows, John Blake ends up owing his life to Bane and relying on him to survive. Several years post-TDKR. AU.

Author's Notes: I was overwhelmed by the number of hits this story got after the last installment. I'm so excited that people are interested! Special thanks to anyone who even glanced at the first chapter, not to mention everyone who followed/favourited the story. It's a pleasure to know that you're enjoying it. Kind reviewers, you make the writing even easier. Here's hope chapter ten will have you back for more. Thank you!

* * *

Chapter Ten

True to his word, Bane gave Blake a booster of anesthetic after he made the proper adjustments to the Venom pump. Blake had just enough time to notice the cocktail was a little heavier on sedation before a wave of dizziness knocked his eyes back into his head and the world fell sideways into blackness.

He thought he heard voices in the darkness - an inquisitive metallic growl and a tired drawl conversing – but Blake couldn't make out what they were saying to one another. They were just white noise narration for the flood of memories plaguing him, some of Strange, a few of an operating room, but most of Nightwing, the cave, the family. All the things that before-Blake took for granted and after-Blake couldn't stand to think about. Blake tried to hang onto the way it felt to walk on two legs and fly between rooftops while he wasn't in pain, but the sensations were fleeting. Passing. And then...gone.

Blake opened his eyes.

Something was wrong.

The lucidity was new but not alarming. Blake felt himself falling back into his old routines. He could still feel his new personality simmering beneath the surface, waiting, but it was continued, leaving only Blake's old training to take over. The fact that he wasn't in pain seemed off to him, disorienting even, but that wasn't it either. Blake sensed something else was amiss, something other than everything else in his crazy, messed up life. More than the serum mutating his body. More than owing his life to Bane.

He took stock, but it was difficult between the drugs and the serum. Blake wasn't sure what he felt and what he didn't. He shifted where he was lying. His back was silent, alarmingly so. No answering twinge or spasm anywhere, even in his left leg, and the drugs could not account for that.

They also couldn't account for the phantom itch in his right foot.

His blood ran cold. _No._ He had never had any phantom sensation in his right leg. Blake propped himself up on his elbows, wincing from the stiffness in his now bulky shoulders, and stared at his right foot. He didn't want to look, didn't want to be reminded, but he felt something he hadn't felt in two years. Chill. Slight itch right below his toes.

Blake's heart lodged itself in his throat. The Venom coursing through his veins had mended the nerve to his leg.

Two years. The damn leg had hung useless at his side for two years without a prickle, tingle, or whisper of activity, and all of a sudden, Blake was noticing things. The feeling of fabric against his skin, the chill of the room on his toes, the adrenaline flooding his veins. Tears collected on the edges of his vision, but Blake was too stunned to brush them away. He stared in awe at his leg, lost in how utterly right it felt to feel anything again.

Which was nothing compared to how Blake felt when his foot started moving.

The sound he made was as much a laugh as it was a cry. Venom hadn't just healed the nerve; it had regenerated the atrophied muscles. Blake was still stiff, but he quickly discovered that the rest of his leg responded to his commands. He could bend his knee, point his toe, apply weight to the joint. In his excitement, Blake forgot his broken self and kicked himself into a standing position, just like old times.

Well, not quite. In old times, he wouldn't have very nearly toppled head first into the floor from the weight of his new physique. Blake's shoulders hadn't reached the proportions of the monster he'd seen earlier, but they much larger than he ever thought possible, than had ever been possible. His legs were barely used to hauling his old torso around, let alone the newer, bulkier one.

Still, the very fact that he had moved gave Blake a high that not even Bane's painkiller cocktail could match. His back hadn't so much as tickled, and even now, standing almost upright, Blake only felt the flex and pull of muscles, not an explosion of agony.

He held the wall for support, knees buckling from the shock of it all despite their new muscle mass. Strange had kidnapped him, tortured him, and used him as a test subject against his will, but the serum had just given Blake his old body back with a few additional perks. Blake didn't know how he felt about that. It was hard to think about all the terrible parts of his current situation when he was up and walking around again.

The locks squeaked, rattling the walls. Bane strode into the room, allowing the door to slide nearly shut behind him.

"You are ready to face the darkness then, little bird," he walked the length of the room slowly, eyes never leaving Blake. His gaze waved the embers inside Blake to flame, but the anesthetic was still strong enough to suppress the urge to destroy, kill, rip, tear...

Blake tore his eyes from Bane and fixed them on the nearest wall for several long moments, regaining himself. He picked the wrong place to look though. Several square feet of the padded wall had been ripped half to hell as some point, and Blake couldn't shake the sensation that he knew how.

"You should be proud of your handiwork," Bane said. "For someone of your stature, in as much pain as you were, that kind of property damage took great strength."

Blake tightened his grip on the wall, but this time it wasn't from elation. He glanced back at Bane and tried to make a joke in spite of the liquid nitrogen flooding his veins. "I told you I wasn't little."

"Not so little anymore," Bane knelt down and picked up his coat, the ancient sheepskin jacket Blake recognized from the Occupation. It was rolled up around the same place Blake had been lying, like a pillow. He didn't get a chance to comment on it before Bane spoke again. "Though still too small for battle with Strange's beasts."

"Give me a couple more hours. I'll be bigger than you."

"It will take more than sheer size to tear me to pieces, little bird, but if you care to try, I would be happy to disabuse you of your newfound confidence."

Bane held his stance proudly, patiently, like a prize fighter waiting for the next round with an opponent on his last legs. The coat hung from one hand. Blake shook his head. "No," he said, though the voices in his head urged him to charge Bane, take him, break him down. Blake looked at the floor to remind himself who he was, all that he regained, before saying, "Thank you, by the way. That anesthetic is really...taking the edge off."

"I will leave you with some after I have left, along with the antidote."

Blake nodded. That wouldn't be so bad. The second Bane was out of the picture, he could get in touch with the family, could get the night straightened out and his life back together, whatever that meant. The hard part was apparently over. Hourly injections followed by the antidote: the night was turning into a piece of cake.

"You should be close to done," Blake replied. "How long was I out?"

"Long enough."

For someone so well spoken, Bane could be ambiguous as all hell. "In hours?"

"Two."

"It's soon," Blake commented. His heart hammered in his chest impatiently though, yearning for this nightmare to be over. "Can you handle another decrease in the dosage?"

Bane's shoulder's twitched in the best approximation of a shrug his massive body could muster. He looked like he could handle anything. Blake wasn't so sure though. In less than six hours, Bane's body had undergone rapid detox from one of the most addictive substances on the planet. His anesthetic could be covering up graver symptoms. Blake couldn't take the risk of killing Bane for the chance to call the cavalry into Old Arkham and do battle with other Venom freaks. "We'll wait," he said finally.

Another twitch. "Strange's monsters and men seem to be contained to the building so far."

"How do you know that?"

"I surveilled them while you were unconscious."

"You went looking for them?"

"Our paths crossed."

Blake was pretty sure he knew what the answer was, but he asked anyways. "Did you kill them?"

"Strange's men, yes. The monster proved more powerful than I anticipated though. He is contained, for the time being, in the basement."

"That's...oddly humane of you."

"He fell through the floor and I did not wish to pursue."

That was more like it. Blake couldn't help but feel grateful. "Well, thank you. I know that you would rather see them tear Gotham apart."

"The floor is more deserving of your sentiments," Bane replied.

"I'll go thank it then," Blake tried to keep the tide of anger welling up inside him from overwhelming his newfound clarity. "Where did you leave him?"

There was an undercurrent of laughter in Bane's voice. "You are not strong or smart enough to challenge Strange's creation."

"Then help me."

Even filtered through his mask, Bane sounded disgusted by the notion. Blake made a fist to relieve the rage building inside him. The Venom side of him was getting stronger despite the drugs. He was going to need another shot soon if he kept talking to Bane. "Fine," he spat, breathing through the fury, "Am I at least free to leave the room?"  
"You have always been free to leave," Bane replied, "Provided you were able to get through me."

Part-dare, part-threat, all-menace, pure-Bane. Blake didn't lose his temper from the challenge though. On the contrary, he was thrilled by it. Between his mental clarity and the loss of his pain, Blake felt all his old Nightwing sensibilities called to action. He kept his eyes trained on the mercenary and walked to the door. His body was stiff, but it was moving, and the thrill was almost a whole new kind of crippling for Blake.

All the while, Bane didn't move a muscle, not even as Blake slid his fingers into the door jam and opened the cell. He was able to move very quickly though, Blake noticed, when he saw one of Strange's monsters marching towards them from the hallway beyond.

* * *

Happy reading!


	12. Chapter Eleven

Disclaimer: The characters and concepts in this story are the property of DC Comics, Christopher Nolan, and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.

Summary: After Hugo Strange uses him as a test subject for an experiment in the Narrows, John Blake ends up owing his life to Bane and relying on him to survive. Several years post-TDKR. AU.

Author's Notes: I don't write fight scenes very often, so I'm afraid my skills are a little rusty. Hopefully the chapter still reads well despite my lack of practice!

To all those that follow this story, added it to their favourites, or reviewed – I write this with every chapter, so it sounds repetitive, but I'm going to keep writing it until the story's done – thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. There is nothing quite like your hits and comments to get me writing another installment. I'm thrilled that you're enjoying the story and I truly appreciate the feedback.

* * *

Chapter Eleven

Blake couldn't figure out if he was terrified or excited in that moment. He knew he should be terrified; he certainly had been in the showers. But another part of him, and Blake wasn't sure whether this was Nightwing or his newer, more dangerous personality, was thrilled with the anticipation of a chase or a fight.

_...or a kill_.

He mimicked Bane's movements, coming to stand beside the mercenary with his back against the wall to the left of the door. Upstairs, it would be easy to track the monster's movements, but they were blind, deaf, and cornered inside the padded cell.

_Man_, Blake reminded himself at last. All night long he'd been reflexively calling Strange's experiments monsters, but that thing outside, whatever had been done to him, whatever he was now, had still been a man at some point. Might still be one, under the Venom. Might still be one again... Blake looked to the door and strained to hear any activity outside of it. If Strange's experiment charged the room, they could trap him inside. A padded cell was far more secure than a derelict basement. Then he could be safely transported to new Arkham, and between Bane's anesthetic and Strange's leftover Venom, he could be cured.

"Bane," Blake whispered, then stopped himself. That preternatural stillness had come over the mercenary once again in waiting as he prepared for whatever Strange's experiment had in store. He cast a brief glance at Blake out of the corner of his eye, a once and final warning, and then settled back into stillness.

Maybe Strange's experiment hadn't seen them after all.

The sound of old concrete shattering caught Blake mid-exhale.

Blake threw a hand to Blake's chest and pushed him back against the wall, holding him there. As usual, he had plans of his own, and Blake knew better than to think they included letting Strange's experiment live.

They could hear the punching and tearing now, the sound proofing having been compromised with the concrete. The creature's frantic grunts filtered through the wall on the far side of the door drawing nearer and louder every passing second as more of the wall was ripped away. Bane almost disappeared into the wall he was so still. Blake had never seen that level of sheer concentration before, at least not combined with a ferocity like Bane's.

Blake decided he was feeling a little more terrified than excited now. As Nightwing, he was used to taking down a small army of men on a regular basis, but he had been so deeply retired for the past four years that there was no telling how much of the training his body remembered. He could maybe have handled Strange's experiment, _maybe_, at the top of his game. Might have even landed a few hits on Bane while he was at it. But even this many years after the Occupation, Bane still looked like an almighty force to be reckoned with.

Blake stifled a groan. If he could get Bane out the door first, he thought, he could use himself as a human shield. Not the best or most likeable strategy, but it might get Bane to pause long enough to lock Strange's experiment up inside.

Blake's new personality had some suggestions too, but he ignored them with all his might.

The creature outside gave a roar loud enough to penetrate the areas of wall that were still sound proofed. The sound cut through Blake's admittedly weak concentration, because a similar roar rang out inside him, just as loud but a little bit angrier. He felt Bane's hand press a little tighter to his chest in response, as if the mercenary could feel the rage building inside him. Blake's terror nearly doubled when he counted six slow heartbeats between wanting to tear the mercenary's arm off to when he finally got a handle on himself and stopped growling.

The door bounced open on its hinges once, twice, three times, and then there was a long, interminable silence. Blake heard another low growl from outside. The creature was learning, considering, and...walking away? His footsteps thundered back up the hallway several paces, sending more concrete rattling from the walls. Blake tilted his head forward, staring past Bane's profile to the door. Venom didn't permit people to just walk away from fights, least of all when they were so close to bloody satisfaction. The creature couldn't be that stupid. He would come back, harder and faster than he had before.

It dawned on Blake just as another roar filled his ears: the creature wasn't walking away; he was getting ready to charge.

"You will run," Bane told Blake. The creature's footsteps thundered towards the door like a death knell.

Blake shook his head. "I won't let you kill-"

How the door wasn't torn from the frame was an absolute miracle. The creature charged into the cell with the force of natural disaster, his gigantic right shoulder dropped down in front of him like a battering ram, and only stopped when the far wall refused to break in front of him. He was utterly massive. Blake had thought him mammoth before, but now, up close, monster seemed like a perfectly appropriate descriptor for what thrashed about before him. Seven, maybe eight feet tall; shoulders like medieval stocks and muscles bursting through the skin. Veins wove ornate green patterns under his skin, throbbing and pulsing.

Blake felt a great pang of sympathy at that moment. Strange had truly and utterly destroyed this man, so much so that Blake couldn't even see the parts that would be worth saving.

He wondered bleakly if the same would be said about him, when he turned.

Bane interrupted Blake's musings by grabbing him by the arm and whipping him out the door. Now was the time he was supposed to run, but Blake didn't get more than a few steps before he glanced over his shoulder and saw Bane reaching for the Venom pump on the monster's back.

"NO!" he shouted.

Not his best idea of the night so far. The creature whipped around in response, monstrous arms flailing, and threw Bane clear off his feet towards the door.

"Bane!" Blake rushed towards him, but the mercenary was standing again like he'd never been knocked down in the first place. He moved with an agility and adeptness that seemed impossible for his size in those next moments. The monster started swiping again chaotically, insensate with rage, and Bane dodged every one of them as if they had rehearsed. He struck quickly and effectively, his movements a total blur. Blake could only register the meaty slaps of fist hitting flesh, not the actual punches themselves.

It was a kick of some kind to the knee that brought the creature crashing forward. He bowed before Bane, mammoth chest heaving with growls and roars and unsatisfied bloodlust. "Come on," Blake beckoned, but Bane wasn't listening. He was reaching for the pump again, and this time, he wasn't going to be stopped. Not easily, anyways.

Even if Blake's body didn't remember the training, his mind certainly did. He switched easily into vigilante mode, adrenaline smoothing the stiffness in his joints, and became Nightwing all over again. He rushed Bane with all his newly developed strength.

Bane, however, was still Bane. Had been ever since the Occupation, would continue to be until the end of time. He caught Blake with an elbow to the stomach and threw him back towards the open doorway.

Then he tore the pump out of the monster's back.

Blood, Venom, and spinal fluid splashed through the air in a macabre firework before settling in a mess on the white padding beneath their feet. Strange's experiment let out a fierce roar that, even within the cell, was deafening, and he thrashed with renewed vigor at both his assailants.

Blake was struck twice in the legs by the creature's blows before he could pull himself away. The pain should have been unbearable, but his body seemed to absorb the impact rather than react to it. He hadn't even necessarily felt the bite of Bane's elbow or the hallway floor when he landed. His muscles had instead flexed up, stiffened, forging themselves into the rock solid physique Venom was so famous for generating.

That should have worried him, but it didn't. Blake was too fixated on the tortured, snarling face in front of him, the one of the man Bane had just sentenced to die. "Why did you do that?!" he demanded over the creature's growls.

Bane said nothing. He took a silent, cautionary step away from the writhing creature, raising the pump like a trophy above his head. Blake watched the pump fall to the floor and heard it shatter under Bane's foot.

The creature lunged towards Blake like a mad dog with two feeble hind legs, causing the smaller man to crawl back across the floor and out of his reach. Blake had a chance. He could lock Bane up inside the cell, leave him to his death. Being saved meant nothing if it meant saving the mercenary too. The only thought that stayed his hand was not the one Blake anticipated. Nightwing would have weighed the risk of shutting the door with putting himself in the creature's reach, but at that moment, all Blake could think about was how much he wanted to kill Bane himself.

He rose to his feet, thoughts darkening despite himself. Bane had taken the whole city hostage, had broken the one hero Gotham truly had; he'd released the criminals and psychopaths from Blackgate and Arkham. And while he might not have pulled the trigger on Blake's doorstep that day, Bane had let the Joker loose in the first place.

And now he had sentenced another innocent to die horribly.

Focus, John. He had started growling again.

...shot the Commissioner, killed countless hundreds in a kangaroo court, countless thousands more from his Occupation...

He wasn't Nightwing anymore. Strange's experiment was the only thing standing between him and sweet, bloody vengeance.

_...kill him, rip him, tear him, break him..._

Blake let the anger take over.

He didn't stop until he heard a skull cracking beneath his fists.

And then he started tearing.

* * *

...happy reading?


	13. Chapter Twelve

Disclaimer: The characters and concepts in this story are the property of DC Comics, Christopher Nolan, and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.

Summary: After Hugo Strange uses him as a test subject for an experiment in the Narrows, John Blake ends up owing his life to Bane and relying on him to survive. Several years post-TDKR. AU.

Author's Notes: The ending of the chapter gets a little...graphic. I tried to keep it T – and minimal – but just in case, there's a little bit of gore in the last couple paragraphs.

To those who favourited/followed, read and/or reviewed - Mrs. John Reese, Cesari5, OliviaSBellatore (no, not creepy, don't worry!) and Jessica, who I can't respond to through the site - thank you for your kind attention, viewership, and comments. They are greatly appreciated, as always. I do hope that you continue to enjoy the story! Thank you!

* * *

Chapter Twelve

Growling. Ragged breathing. Fabric tearing. Strange's experiment was still at large then. Trying to escape the cell. Maybe. Blake was having a hard time seeing at the time, and the sounds weren't conclusive. They didn't seem to be coming from inside of a cell. All the grunting and heaving seemed to be close and drawing closer with every passing second.

The concrete struck hard and solidly against his knuckles.

Blake stopped. Blinked. His vision returned in a blinding rush of white light. That growling was coming from his throat.

He closed his mouth and swallowed hard. The floor of the padded cell lay open before him, exposed through a gaping wound in the fabric. More of his handiwork? A chill dashed through Blake from his skin all the way to the marrow of his bones. He'd blacked out. And there was blood on his hands, on his chest, on his face, through his hair, along with small fragments of bone and tissue. Blake knew they weren't his, but hell if he could remember whose they were or how they got there or...or...

"John?"

Blake caught a quick glimpse of Bane hovering in his periphery, empty needle still brandished in one hand. Shock and shame forced him to look away, back to the floor and the bloody prints his punches had left behind. "Hi," he replied lamely. "Did I...hurt you?"

He had certainly wanted to, and even now, Blake could still feel rage simmering beneath his terror.

"I cannot be harmed, little bird."

Bane's tone was casual, but the words themselves cut Blake wide open and emptied him out completely. An almost painful numbness overtook his body. The obvious question lodged itself in his throat like a fist. Blake choked, spluttered, and dared to peek over his shoulder.

All he saw was red.

He turned around to the gash in the floor again. The words fell out of his throat and settled like shrapnel in his stomach. His ears were ringing. "I'm sorry," Blake said, trying to fill the silence, but the only person he needed to apologize to was already several kinds of dead.

"You needn't apologize."

"I just..." now the tears were coming, along with the hysterical laughter. "I just beat a man to death! I tore him to pieces!"

"Strange had turned that man into a monster long ago," Bane said. "There was nothing more that you could have done for him. Nothing you could have done to stop yourself."

"I could have saved him. I should have..." Blake's stomach forced itself into a chokehold and sent a splash of bile into the back of his throat. Red. The whole half of the room was red. He pressed a hand to his mouth to hold back only to remember that his hands were red too, not to mention flecked with pieces of Strange's experiment. There was absolutely no resisting his stomach after that; Blake broke into dry heaves.

As a cop and as Nightwing, he had seen his share of blood before. When it came to violence and brutality, Gotham's criminals were ahead of the curve. Some had actually painted the town red. But to be the perpetrator of such violence, to have something locked up inside that wanted to destroy and kill, was a new feeling for Blake entirely. He wanted to heave it out of him, but whatever had come over him – whatever had torn Strange's experiment to pieces – had settled nicely in the deepest, darkest recesses of his soul and was staying put.

Something warm and heavy was draped over his shoulders. Blake almost doubled over from the change in weight, but he was caught round the biceps and held steady. "That man was already destroyed when Strange captured him as a test subject. There was nothing more you or your inadequate asylum could have done," Bane informed him.

"So I was merciful, then?" Blake spat the taste of vomit out of his mouth. God, the smell of blood was _everywhere_.

Bane's mask hissed. "No, it was far too late to have been mercy."

The truth hurt, but Blake appreciated the honesty nonetheless. He would have been more hurt by any attempt to make him feel better. Not that Bane would.

"I've never killed before," Blake said quietly, as if that wasn't obvious enough from his reaction.

"But you have wanted to kill before. Men always possess the desire, even if they do not possess the courage. The Venom isn't planting ideas in your head, Robin John Blake. You have wanted me dead since you first learned I was in Gotham."

"Yeah, but I didn't kill you, did I? I had a choice; I let you walk."

"But you didn't have a choice with Strange's monster."

"He wasn't a monster," the words sounded as hollow as Blake felt, but he didn't care. "Strange's tortured a man into becoming that thing, and I...I..." he looked to his bloody hands and fell silent. "I guess I'm just Strange's monster now too. No better than, at any rate."

Bane huffed. "For a monster," he said, "you possess an awful lot of moral uncertainty, little bird."

"Yeah, well, for a man, you posses an awful lot of moral certainty," Blake took Bane's silence as an agreement. He tilted his head slightly towards the mercenary's arm. "How do you do it? Killing?"

"I learned long ago that life is not a right; it is a privilege. Life is a prize hard won in battle against fear, against doubt, against pain." Blake felt the mercenary's eyes tracing over his back at that moment, and his spine tingled from the ghost of the bullet wound that used to plague him. "Humanity is not a strong constitution though. People would sooner give up the struggle than fight for the strength to keep it. That's why their build institutions and laws to govern, why they hide behind artifice and semantics to protect themselves. Life is merely habit for them. When I kill, I am relieving them of a burden they neither want nor deserve."

Blake felt his heart breaking. "That doesn't help me."

"You did not ask for help."

Another hysterical laugh followed by a swallowed sob. "True."

There was no use asking the mercenary for help either, based on that response. Blake truly believed that all life was sacred, even murderous terrorists who threatened cities with nuclear holocaust or madmen who shot people in their own homes. He still believed that there had been a way to save the man inside Strange's experiment: more importantly, that there was still something worth saving. Blake didn't know what to do with that thought though. He tried telling himself that it wasn't his fault, that he wasn't in control of his own actions, but those were just excuses. He should have been stronger than Strange, stronger than Venom. Strong enough to save the creature, himself, and Bane.

Bane gripped his arms tightly, again as if responding to Blake's inner monologue. "You are still in shock," he said. "Can you walk?"

Blake nodded shakily, but Bane still kept a firm grip on him as he rose. Once standing, the mercenary's hands hovered just a moment before retreating. The sheepskin coat was left to hang over his shoulders. "Thank you," Blake said softly.

"It was necessary."

Oh, for the love of... "Where I come from we say, 'You're welcome.'"

Bane's shoulders twitched in a shrug. "Where I come from, we do not say, 'Thank you.'"

He didn't move after that, not until Blake did, and even then he was careful to stand between the smaller man and the mess he'd made. "It is not necessary for you to look," Bane told Blake when he tried to peer around at the remains.

The former detective shook his head. "No, I need to see this."

The mercenary's gaze was, as always, impassive though the way he hesitated made Blake rethink his decision for a split second. Even a hardened killer wasn't sure if he should get a closer look at his handiwork. Whatever lay on that side of the room was worse than the glimpse of red he'd gotten earlier.

But as much as Blake disagreed with Bane's philosophy of life, one thing they could both agree on was that life was a struggle. Life was filled with terrible things that people adapted to, fought against, or hid from. Blake wasn't one to hide, least of all from things he had done. He had to know what was stirring inside of him, what dark half Strange had unlocked, so that the next time they met, Blake wouldn't lose himself in the process.

He still regretted the decision when Bane stepped aside though. Just a little. Because the sight that greeted him was so much worse than he could have ever imagined. Red was an understatement. Red was a generalization. Red did not even come close to accurately describing the carnage he'd caused. There certainly was red covering every surface: the floor, the walls, even some on the ceiling. But then there was the pool of what looked to be gray scrambled eggs where the creature's head ought to have been. His right forearm was lying in the corner having been torn messily from the creature's body. There were also bite marks – human bite marks – on his thigh muscles where there used to be skin.

The air cleared out of the room. Blake tasted bile for the second time. "I'm sorry," he stammered. His heart skipped several beats and then played catch up. Bane caught him when he swooned. "I'm really sorry."

He pretended not to hear when Bane told him, "There is nothing to be sorry for, little bird."

* * *

...happy reading!(?)


	14. Chapter Thirteen

Disclaimer: The characters and concepts in this story are the property of DC Comics, Christopher Nolan, and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.

Summary: After Hugo Strange uses him as a test subject for an experiment in the Narrows, John Blake ends up owing his life to Bane and relying on him to survive. Several years post-TDKR. AU.

Author's Notes: Whew! Well, for another more pensive installment, this chapter took me a while to put together. First I couldn't figure out exactly what the characters would say to one another, and then I was traveling, and then I was suffering from writer's block... Needless to say, I'm happy it's finished. I had to improvise a little in this chapter about why Bane ended up in the Pit, so I borrowed from the comics. I'm also writing under the assumption that Blake didn't understand Miranda's full role in the Occupation, given that her identity was only divulged in full to Bruce.

Thank you to those that favourited/followed, and those who reviewed. It was wonderful encouragement. I hope this next chapter is satisfying!

* * *

Chapter Thirteen

The shock left Blake reeling. He knew he was walking – though stumbling might have been a more accurate term – but he didn't know or care where. Every now and then Bane would give him a soft push around a corner or towards some stairs. Occasionally the mercenary's arm would even snake around his back to catch him when his feet got tangled on one another or his knees buckled. Blake was also aware that he had another fit of dry heaving and raspy apologies, but he felt like a third or fourth party witness to his breakdown rather than an active participant.

Bane disappeared at one point; Blake thought perhaps it was for good. He was alone and absolutely helpless, lost in a stupor that began and ended with killing. He had _killed_ with his bare hands. Beaten every last ounce of life from someone's body, and then beaten them some more. Painted a room red, gray, and gory with their insides. There was no stiff-upper-lipping this one, no brave face to put on, no mystery to solve. Blake could only cower under Bane's coat, struggling for warmth and finding none, praying that when he finally woke up, he would still be himself.

The soft slap of a hand against his cheek roused Blake from his episode. Bane's face hovered just inches from his, black eyes and black mask contrasting sharply with his pale skin. Blake should have been terrified, but he doubted anything would ever terrify him anymore. There was something inside him worse than Bane, mindless and evil, something that had...had...

"The symptoms will pass but do try and stay alert, John," Bane remarked.

"Easier said than done," Blake shivered. "You sticking me with anesthetic every five minutes."

"You would prefer the alternative?"

No. God no. Not again. Blake shook his head. Never again with the alternative. He almost wanted to take the damn antidote now, provided that wasn't what Bane injected into him earlier. Based on the still increasing size of his shoulders and pectorals, Blake was willing to guess it wasn't.

"If it brings you solace, you may remind yourself that I had already sentenced the monster to die by removing his supply of Venom."

"That really doesn't bring me any solace," another chill rattled through Blake's body. When he tried to bury himself under the coat, Bane snatched him by the chin and held him steady. Blake felt his inner monster start rattling, hot and violent in his bones, but between the shock and the anesthetic, he was pretty wall contained for the time being. No matter how far Bane decided to twist his head back, it seemed.

Blake's hand jerked up defensively when his neck twisted to a breaking point. Bane pushed his arm easily back to his side without once letting go of his head. His hand splashed somewhere out of sight. "You would rather assume full responsibility."

"You..."

The next words died on Blake's tongue. Something wet and surprisingly warm for a place that had been without heat for ever and a day made its way to his next and scrubbed the gore for his skin. Bane's movements weren't gentle, per se; they were pragmatic. As hard or as soft as they needed to be without unduly harming Blake any further. They were also incredibly quick. Bane dried him off quickly to avoid chilling him any further.

Blake was paying very close attention now. "Why are you doing this?" he asked.

"Because you are unable to do it yourself," Bane replied casually, "And you are going to be administering to instruments attached to my body." He turned Blake's head to the other side and wiped down his cheeks, neck, and collarbone. The air prickled coolly against Blake's wet skin.

Once his face and neck were dry, Blake's head was released. He stretched his neck to relieve the stiffness, but the muscles were still so new, so fresh. They would need the full influence of the Venom to work efficiently. Meanwhile, Bane had already picked up his hand and started scrubbing there, this time more gruffly. Parts of Strange's experiment were buried under his fingernails all the way to the cuticles.

Blake couldn't help but stare. The mercenary had done a lot of things to him over the course of their night together – carrying, dragging, pinching, prodding, bending and folding, restraining, injecting – all of which he seemed born and bred to do. Causing pain came as naturally to Bane as removing it. His movements now seemed just as proficient though. Despite all his ruthlessness, his violence, his lack of morality, Bane knew how to take care of another person, and he would do so if the occasion called for it.

"What were you in prison for?" Blake asked quietly.

He didn't think Bane would reply at all, but the mercenary surprised him. "I was formally charged with murder."

Staring at his fingers, Blake could almost forget that he had used his fists for anything that night. There were no bruises, no scrapes, no marks of any kind, the Venom having swallowed up any injuries along with his mind. "But you weren't guilty?"

"I had to become a prisoner to become a killer."

"Why did you kill when you were in prison?"

Now Blake really didn't think Bane was going to answer. His eyes had taken on that far away quality, but something was different in his expression this time. Bane wasn't ignoring Blake; he was legitimately lost in his memory, in another time and place, and there was no distracting him from it.

"I was...protecting something," Bane scrubbed a little more firmly at Blake's wrist. "Something stronger than hope and fear. Stronger than the Pit."

"What was it?"

"A will. Stronger than even yours, little bird, and uncorrupted by foolishness."

"Whose?"

His hand fell back to his side and was hidden again by the coat. Blake flexed his now clean fingers, relishing the warmth still lingering from the water, and readied himself as best as his still sluggish mind would allow. Bane's face was set in silent deliberation about how to answer. Blake thought the choice was between using words or violence, but when Bane fished his other hand out from under the coat and started washing the blood away, he realized it was simply a matter of words.

"A child," Bane said simply.

"Who the hell would send a child to prison?"

"Powerful men. Frightened men. In lands like Gotham, where justice protects the guilty and punishes the innocent. I was a boy when I was sentenced to the Pit for my father's crimes. She was born there, her mother a sacrificial lamb for the sins of her husband."

For the first time – and perhaps the only time – Bane's ministrations softened, gentled, against Blake's skin. The water was colder now, but the chill didn't seem to bite away so fiercely at what little heat remained inside Blake's body. He felt himself warmed somewhat by understanding. Bane wasn't born evil. He wasn't some mythological monster sent from Revelation to bring about the end of the world. He had been a victim, once upon a time, back before he could truly defend himself. And the only way to beat a monster like the Pit and all the horrors surrounding it seemed to be becoming an even bigger monster. Something worse than Batman but with no less noble or redeeming motivations, at least at times.

Blake felt the emptiness welling up inside of him, stronger than his guilt over killing Strange's experiment. "What happened to her?" he asked. Was it her death at the hands of prisoners that had inspired the prison brawl that cost Bane his face? Bane's scrubbed more firmly at Blake's skin at that, not enough to bruise but certainly enough for the smaller man to understand how dangerous his line of questioning was becoming.

"She was killed," Bane replied, "But not in the Pit."

"She was released?"

"There is no release from the Pit. She escaped, returned for me..." the scrubbing stopped. Bane rinsed the cloth. Not that it did much good: the water was almost the same colour and consistency of the entrails being washed from Blake's hands. "She was killed in Gotham. In the last throes of our occupation."

Blake felt the chill stab right through his heart. The old puzzle pieces of the Occupation settled into place within his mind. Miranda Tate had been the little girl that Bane saved from the Pit. She had been the woman instrumental in his crippling of Gotham. And she had died being chased by Blake's predecessor. Ten years ago, when Blake's bitterness was at its pitch, he might not have known what to say, might not have said anything at all. What they had done to the city, what they would have done, was unforgivable. But with everything he had seen, done, and been through since, even within the past several hours, Blake said exactly what he felt. "I'm sorry."

The conversation was over though. Bane had returned to task, running the damp cloth over Blake's wrist again in short, staccato strokes, breaking the dried blood and freeing the skin underneath. Blake didn't want to push his luck – what little luck had had left – but he couldn't help himself to just one more question.

"Is that why you're doing this?" he clarified, realizing that question would generate a philosophical debate more than an answer. "Why you're helping me?"

Bane dried his forearm, inspecting his work to ensure he had not missed a spot. "You agreed to help me," was his only explanation.

That didn't satisfy Blake. Up until his episode decision to face Strange's serum, Bane was just as content to let him die. Something about his will had inspired something in the mercenary, or perhaps, Blake thought, something about his helplessness. He was identifying rather strongly with a very young girl trapped in hell on earth.

He didn't mention it though. Bane had already divulged more secrets than Blake expected, and he decided the best thing to do right now would be to give the mercenary a break. "You don't have to do this," Blake said. "I mean, I appreciate it, but I can...I feel a lot...clearer now."

Bane stared straight through him for several long moments, waiting for that fog to creep into Blake's eyes again, but the former detective held the mercenary's gaze easily now. There wasn't anything to be afraid of: Bane wasn't going to kill him, and they weren't really so different after all.

After an interminable silence, the wet rag ended up in Blake's outstretched hand. "As you wish," Bane replied before rising and retreating.

He didn't leave the room though. Just stood guard at the exam room door in silence, looking lost again.

* * *

Happy reading!


	15. Chapter Fourteen

Disclaimer: The characters and concepts in this story are the property of DC Comics, Christopher Nolan, and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.

Summary: After Hugo Strange uses him as a test subject for an experiment in the Narrows, John Blake ends up owing his life to Bane and relying on him to survive. Several years post-TDKR. AU.

Author's Notes: Reviewers, followers, favouriters – the story has almost reached its end. Your readerships and comments are always appreciated, especially since writer's block has started rearing its ugly head these past couple of days. My updates might be a little spotty the next couple of days for the holidays, but bear with me. I hope to have another chapter up soon. Thank you for the support! I hope you enjoy this installment!

* * *

Chapter Fourteen

Blake's guilt gradually started hardening in his stomach by degrees. He couldn't digest it. No matter how hard he chewed, the remorse stayed there – same size, same shape – until the only option left was to get used to it. The guilt, he knew, would be there for a long, long time. Blake didn't accept what he had done, but he was eventually able to tell himself the pit in his stomach wasn't going away and there was nothing more to do but finish what he started. End his contract to Bane, contact the family, secure Strange's experiment, administer the antidote. He'd had shorter shopping lists in the past. With Bane gone, there would be only Strange's creature left to worry about in Old Arkham. All Blake had to do was keep a clear head till then, which he could do. Right?

He threw a punch into the wall at his left, knocking a square foot of dry wall to kingdom come without feeling so much as a tickle in his knuckles. Blake almost punched again in frustration, but he tugged his arm back to his chest and held it there. Apparently, he needed more than just clear headedness, but the level of self-restraint required to keep the Venom at bay seemed like more than he could muster. It had felt good to lose control, hadn't it? It had been liberating to give in. Morality was just holding him back from his full potential, keeping him from doing what was natural and necessary and...

The needle stick didn't register, but the effect of the anesthetic did. Blake felt his own personal Mr. Hyde settle into a simmer and his own better judgment take hold. There was no accompanying dizziness or haze this time; either Bane had perfected the dosage or his other half was getting stronger. Blake wasn't sure which. "Sorry," he said, gesturing to the new hole in the wall.

"Destroying this facility would be no great loss," Bane said nonchalantly. He returned the now empty needle to a small collection of vials and hypodermics he had amassed on the bed. They were back in the exam room again, though it took Blake several seconds to recognize the space. The room looked different from his angle, huddled into a corner as he was.

He pushed the thin blanket from his legs and extricated himself from under the warmth of Bane's jacket. The room was cold, but the chill no longer tore into him as it had earlier. "I know that it was necessary and all, but thank you. For pulling me out of that room, bringing me back up here," his voice was back to its usual tones, serious almost to the point of severity. Blake could almost forget about what happened, or at least push it into the furthest corners of his mind along with everything else he was keeping in check. "I wouldn't have made it this far if you hadn't...if you weren't..." he didn't know how to finish that sentence, so he settled on saying, "Thank you," one more time.

Bane gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod. "You are, as they say, welcome, John."

Blake could scarcely believe his ears. He, a former cop and vigilante, had just thanked a mass murdering terrorist with no social skills, and the mass murdering terrorist had managed a polite, socially acceptable response. It was a testament to how screwed up the night was when this seemed like a natural trajectory for the night.

"Though my contributions have merely enabled you to recklessly endanger your own life and betray your rigid moral constitution."

One step forward, ten steps back. Blake could only nod in response, deflated but not surprised by Bane's addendum. He had that coming to him, that blunt honesty. He was almost thankful for it too. Bane was not being cruel, not unduly anyways. The mercenary was simply pointing out the obvious: just as much good might have resulted from leaving Blake to die in Strange's lab. Just as much evil too.

"I suppose it customary for me to thank you as well, for your assistance," Bane noted.

Blake immediately shook his head. "I made you a deal," he said. "You don't owe me anything."

"You are correct: I owe you nothing. But if you are thanking me without reason, I will return the favour. Thank you, John."

Ten years ago, if anyone told Blake he would one day be exchanging social niceties with the man that nearly destroyed Gotham, he would have laughed in their faces and then told them to go to hell. He would have included an explicit and graphic description of how they could get there too, one that drew from his own experiences during the Occupation. Now, he was too stunned to do anything. Even laughter seemed to elude him. The night had reached a harrowing, surreal pitch, and none of Blake's identities had any idea how to react.

Thankfully, Bane was there to remind him of appropriate social conventions. "It is customary for you to say I am welcome."

Now, Blake laughed, sounding sardonic and hysterical and more than just a little unhinged. The night was a hellish mess: he had just killed a man in cold blood, Bane was upholding social conventions, and there was still had a monster to contain in the basement and eventually the urge to kill would be overwhelming. And Blake was all alone.

His voice broke when he chuckled from the sobs clawing their way up his throat. Politeness was such a farce. All it did was cover up the awfulness of the world, hid the monsters looking to tear the fabric of existence to shreds. Like the monster inside Blake. Like the monster lying in pieces downstairs. His guilt swelled to the size of a boulder inside his small intestines. He wanted to not have to say it, wanted to sink into the hole he'd made into the wall and disappear.

But he couldn't. He just couldn't. He, John Blake, was not that _thing _lurking inside him. He still had the power to choose, and no matter how stupid Bane thought it was or how fake it seemed in light of recent events, he chose to be polite, to be grateful, to be gracious. Because as small and pathetic as the gesture seemed, it was the only thing standing between Blake and all the terrible things, outside and within, threatening to tear the world to pieces. His voice was strained, just barely containing all that misery and cynicism rearing up inside him, but Blake still managed to say, "You're welcome." The corners of his mouth curved slightly upward when he added, "It was necessary."

Blake had to flash a small, sad smile at Bane before the mercenary understood that it was a quip. His ensuing chuckle was a low, melodic, metallic tang, and the sound was almost hidden by the hiss of his mask.

The unerring quiet of Old Arkham overtook the room a second later. Blake closed his eyes, fought against the feelings of familiarity he was developing for the terrain. He was going to forget about Old Arkham when all this was over, rewrite the memories with the white noise of the cave or something equally soothing. Home. He wanted to go home.

"How long has it been since I decreased the dosage?" Blake asked, trying to hide his eagerness. The nightmare could be over soon.

"Long enough for the Venom to run dry. An hour since you were last aware."

' A rush of panic raced through Blake. "The Venom ran dry?"

"Yes. I became aware of its absence from my system not long after bringing you here. The detox has not been severe."

Blake made a frantic move to Bane's spine. How far had he decreased the dosage already? Too high and the mercenary could be killed from the shock. Blake prayed that it was low enough to be curtailed by Bane's anesthetic. Prayed that he had not lived through this entire night only to lose now. Not after fighting so hard.

Bane turned calmly, obediently, baring his back to Blake. The former detective blinked to clear his vision, panic having blurred his sight to the point where it was useless. He gripped the edges of the pump for support and stared at the small screen. Low. The dosage had been low. Just several CCs above nothing. Blake breathed a heavy sigh and scrubbed a hand over his face, too relieved to pay any attention to the _tear him, hurt him, break him _whispering through his mind. "How do you feel?" he asked.

"I am well," Bane replied, and his appearance did nothing to undermine his assessment. Still Blake had to be sure.

"I need to check your heart rate and your temperature. Your blood pressure, Your pupils," Blake tried to remember all the measurable physiological indicators of detox but his memory was still playing tricks on him. "I should have been paying closer attention. I'm sorry. I..."

"Once again you have nothing to apologize for. Had the symptoms become a problem, I would have roused you. My heart rate has been slightly depressed but is climbing. My temperature is slightly elevated but close to normal. I am not experiencing any sensitivity to light that would indicate dilated pupils. You may check my blood pressure, but it is not necessary. No, little bird, I think our time together has reached its end."

Blake wasn't convinced. He felt another pit developing in his chest, this one response to his failure to uphold the end of the deal. He shouldn't have allowed himself to be incapacitated for so long, not when a life was at stake. Not when another life was at stack. He scrunched his eyes till they hurt more than his head did, and then pressed his fingers into them until his vision was red and aching. "This could kill you."

"I have survived worse than this, little bird. Remove the pump."

"Just one more decrease!"

"I will not risk you losing your mind before honouring our arrangement," Bane said more forcefully. He glanced over his shoulder. "Your conscience is clear."

His conscience didn't feel clear. The weight of the kill grew heavier by the second. The weight of another would crush him. He wasn't a monster, and only a monster would leave Bane in the throes of detox.

"If you will not remove the pump, I will inject you with the antidote."

It was the first time Bane had ever made a verbal threat, the first time he ever had to, because for the first time, Blake was in complete control of the situation. The antidote was the last card Bane had to play. Luckily for him, unluckily for Blake, it was the only card that mattered.

Blake unscrewed the tubes from the top of the pump and detached the belt from Bane's midriff. "I can't remove the ports without damaging your spinal cord," he said, "but they shouldn't cause you much trouble."

Bane turned round on his heels, one hand poised for Blake while the other sank into the pocket of his pants. Blake didn't even bother to flinch. He had the strength now to fight back, his muscle mass almost meeting Bane's, but he didn't have the will to do it. Neither did Bane, obviously. He reached past Blake for his coat, withdrawing it from behind the smaller man. He held out a small leather pouch with his other hand.

"Ten CCs at your current size," Bane said, "but adjust the dosage as necessary depending on how large you've grown when you take it."

When Blake didn't reach for the pouch, Bane set it neatly into his lap. He rose to his full height, tossing the jacket over his shoulders in two swift jerking movements. Blake was stricken with immediate déjà vu: there, standing above him, was the man who broke Gotham. The man who escaped hell.

"I prepared syringes of the anesthetic for you on the bed. Inject one as needed."

"What if I need more?"

"Than you will have no more use for that," Bane pointed to the antidote. He levelled his gaze onto Blake in the same sobering way he did in the padded cell after Blake's outburst. Like he was a child instead of a grown man. Like he was in need of sound reason and logic. Like he needed saving from himself. "Do not allow yourself to be lost to Strange's serum, little bird, no matter how strong the compunction to destroy yourself becomes. A robin red breast in a cage puts all heaven in a rage."

"More Dante?" Blake spat.

"William Blake," Bane corrected him.

"Fitting."

Bane didn't wave or bade him goodbye. He just shut the door quietly behind him, leaving Blake alone in the silence.

* * *

Happy reading!


	16. Chapter Fifteen

Disclaimer: The characters and concepts in this story are the property of DC Comics, Christopher Nolan, and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.

Summary: After Hugo Strange uses him as a test subject for an experiment in the Narrows, John Blake ends up owing his life to Bane and relying on him to survive. Several years post-TDKR. AU.

Author's Notes: Happy holidays, everyone! I hope everyone has enjoyed the wait. This chapter is a little rough, penned in a rather disjointed sitting, but I am getting closer to the conclusion! Thank you so much for the kind comments and those that favourited/followed. Enjoy the next installment!

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Chapter Fifteen

Sunrise in Gotham was a bittersweet affair. The city was all iron and steel, harsh edges and gray gloom during the day; dark alleys and eerie shadows at night. Caught between the two though, and all the rawness of Gotham faded away. She was sleek, sultry, and promising against the fire of the horizon. The last remaining stronghold in battle. Blake used to wait for it after patrol each day from the tallest points in Gotham: Wayne Tower, the clock tower, the GCN station. As happy as he was to find out that Gotham was still standing, still beautiful, in spite of it all, the passing of another night saddened him. The sun meant taking off the mask, hanging up the costume, and pretending the world was at peace before the war started again that night.

Hence, Blake had to pause when he emerged on the rooftops of Old Arkham. The sun had just appeared on the horizon, a small sliver peeking through the imposing rooftops beyond the river. The angle of the light made the light pollution invisible, leaving the sky a pristine navy-indigo with the moon hugging Wayne Tower's right side. He hadn't taken in a sky like this in four years, not because he couldn't access rooftops, but because it just wasn't the same to watch from the sidelines. These were Nightwing's skies, not John Blake's. After a while, he stopped looking up. Now, it was impossible not to: he had to face the morning, embrace it, hold onto it. After the night he'd been having, Blake felt like he earned the dawn. Duelling wits with super-villains, fighting bad guys...this was just like old times. He felt like he was just coming off a patrol, even felt the phantom itch of the mask on his face for a second.

Well, almost. Blake balled his killing hands into fists. Some parts of the evening were new, and they hurt like hell. He had fallen further than four years away from Nightwing in one night, and there were still miles to go before he could do anything about it. Not to mention very little time left. Sunrise meant that the family would be rejoining real life. They had identities to maintain, jobs to do, school to attend in some cases. They wouldn't have any time to search for Blake. If they were even searching for him. He hadn't exactly told them about the surgery.

_Surgery_. Again, he was stricken by that same memory: white room, kind voice, and burning sensation flooding his arm. Blake charged through the flashback – he really didn't have time for half-forgotten surgeries right now – but the feelings that lingered were too acute to dismiss. The family might not know to search for him. They might just head straight back to the cave and head back to their other lives.

"No," Blake declared, marching across the rooftop. No, he wouldn't allow himself to indulge that. They called themselves a family for a reason, and not just because it started as a cheesy inside joke. They stuck together, the birds and bats in Gotham. They were going to notice he was missing, and they were going to come for him. He just needed to get a signal to them.

Communications were unreliable in the Narrows prior to the Occupation, but following Bane's regime, they were all but nonexistent. Especially in Old Arkham apparently. Blake had checked the few remaining consoles and phones in the asylum, but he either couldn't get power or a connection. He got to higher ground then. The computers in the cave received satellite images of Gotham, the perfect bird's eye view, and a well placed bat signal – no matter how ad hoc – would definitely attract their attention.

He saw the smoke rising from the far wing and headed towards it. Strange's lab was still smoldering. Authorities didn't dare enter the Narrows anymore, leaving the criminals to govern the area at their own discretion. The fire would burn until it inched too close to another crime lord's territory, and then they might extinguish it. Until that time, Blake was free to channel as much of the blaze as possible into a signal. Something big, something dramatic, something that would get the attention of every bird and bat in the city.

The ground beneath Blake's feet grew warmer and weaker the closer he got to the blaze. He felt himself start sinking slightly into the floor below, the weight of his new muscles just barely supported by the blaze underneath. Several hours ago, he would have had no way to harness the fire into a signal, but now that he had his legs and Venom strength, he knew exactly what to do. He reached the hottest part of the roof, biting the insides of his cheeks to keep his inner monster at bay in face of the pain, and stomped his foot into the roof with all his strength.

The roof immediately collapsed under the force. Blake jumped back before he could fall through, narrowly avoiding the small fire that leapt through the hole he'd just created. "Still not the dumbest plan of the night," he told himself, and it really wasn't. Stomping holes into a burning building was a stroke of genius compared to some of his other great ideas.

He kicked another gaping hole in the ceiling, then another. His Venom infused body absorbed any of the damage the roof and fire might have inflicted. Even the heat seemed to pass through him, rising into the soles of his feet and then fading. The exertion stirred the monster inside him to attention, issuing another mental chant of _kill, tear, rip, destroy_ and driving Blake to take out a larger part of the ceiling he intended. He yanked himself away from the destruction before he stomped himself through the floor and took several deep, calming breaths away from the flames.

The sun was more than a sliver on the horizon now. Blake blinked against the warm morning light piercing the waves of smoke. Even as Nightwing, he had never felt more alive than this, more capable. Blake hated what he had done to Strange's creature, hated what he wanted to do to the other experiment locked in the basement...

But.

But he didn't want to go back to how it was before. Not physically. Blake was tired of the pain, the pills, the life behind a computer monitor. Tired of watching the family enjoy his inheritance. He wanted sunrises like this: sunrises spent fighting for Gotham, working for good. Sunrises spent hurtling toward catastrophe and averting it at the eleventh hour by dumb luck or just relentless fighting or both. Strange had, in the worst possible way, given Blake his life back, and now, the former detective wasn't sure that he would be able to take the cure when the time came. If he couldn't have his body back, Blake thought darkly, maybe it wouldn't be so bad to be incarcerated as a monster. He wouldn't know what was happening anyways.

Blake took out his indecision on the roof, carving out a jagged wing with his foot through the inferno. He didn't have a place in the cave anymore anyways. They didn't need someone sitting behind the scenes watching the monitors anymore than they needed the roid-raged freak he was now. It would be better to disappear, make this his last great mission. Save Gotham from Strange and then fall into obscurity. He couldn't have asked for a better way to say good-bye to the city he loved. The city that took his spine, that took his leg – that city could have his life, gladly. Blake would hand himself over with a demented, bloodthirsty smile on his Venom-deranged face.

He stamped out another jagged wing on the opposite side of the initial hole with greater ferocity. He had given Gotham _everything_. _EVERYTHING_. Without any hope for repayment. Why couldn't he have just one thing in return? Gotham would spare the man who broke her, but Blake would spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair because he made enemies with a psychotic clown.

Blake very nearly followed his roar through the roof into the inferno, but he marched out of the flames at the last minute towards the ledge and cried out at the city instead. The skyscrapers, the houses, the damn sunrise: all of it. Every horrible inch of it. He shouldn't have to choose between his body or his brain. He shouldn't have to risk either. He had done enough for this city, not to mention given more than enough, to deserve one break.

He tore himself away before he could tear the rest of the roof apart, surveying his handiwork from a safe distance. The hole in the roof was vaguely bat shaped. Large enough to be seen by patrolling vigilantes on the roof and deliberate enough to catch even a passing gaze on the computer monitor. They would come, Blake knew. They might already be coming now. And when they did...he sighed. Blake didn't know what was going to happen anymore. He wouldn't go back. He couldn't go back. He wasn't sure he could risk Strange's antidote if that's what it meant either.

"DAMN YOU," Blake cursed. Oh, his inner monster was really liking this new attitude. He felt the fires inside him rise as high as the blaze through the roof and had to start walking away to keep from _kill, tear, rip, break, destroy_. He hated being forced into this position.

He re-entered the asylum through the door he originally exited. The darkness of Old Arkham was soothing. Blake felt his rage quelled somewhat by the silence and the solitude, felt the monster subdued through disassociation. Gotham ceased to exist inside these walls and no longer held that powerful sway demanding Blake lay down everything he had left in her name. He would end this, and he would survive this, and the family was coming, and this nightmare was almost over.

His heartbeat slowed. The rage subsided. Time to go check on Strange's other experiment, Blake decided. No use just standing around when there was work to be done. He traipsed off down the hall, flying down the stairs to the main floor. He could just check and make sure the creature was secure, and then...think about taking Strange's cure.

It had been easy, several hours before, to notice the signs of the creature's approach. But now, bulked up on Venom and hyper-focused to keep from losing his mind, Blake almost missed the feelings of the floor vibrating beneath his feet. He stopped at the door to the main floor, held his breath, and waited to make sure it wasn't just his heart.

Nope, not his heart. Definitely the floor again. Strange's remaining creature had climbed out of the basement, and he was drawing closer and closer to Blake. Just as well, the former detective's face twisted in fury, because his own monster was rising closer and closer to the surface too.

* * *

Happy reading!


	17. Chapter Sixteen

Disclaimer: The characters and concepts in this story are the property of DC Comics, Christopher Nolan, and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.

Summary: After Hugo Strange uses him as a test subject for an experiment in the Narrows, John Blake ends up owing his life to Bane and relying on him to survive. Several years post-TDKR. AU.

Author's Notes: I'm almost back on my old schedule – only four days for this installment! Thank you to Cesari, who reviewed, and any new followers/favouriters, as well as any old followers and favouriters. Happy New Year, everyone, to those that celebrated! I wish you a wonderful start to 2013 or just a wonderful week in general.

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Chapter Sixteen

There was no time.

Blake was expecting to have an opportunity to go back upstairs, inject another booster of anesthetic before taking on Strange's experiment in any capacity. He hadn't anticipated that the creature would be walking around freely. There were only a few shaking steps left before they were side by side in the hall. He couldn't rush back upstairs, but Blake also knew he wouldn't be able to fight the creature if he challenged him now. All Blake would be able to do was kill.

But if this was minimum security, there would be plenty of exits. Any number of doors for the creature to walk through and take up prowling the streets of Gotham. Once outside, there were only three people in the city left to stand in his way that wouldn't kill him, and Blake had no idea where they were at the moment. He couldn't let Strange's experiment escape. He had to do something, so long as that something wasn't _kill_ no matter how much his inner monster might like him too.

Blake shifted away from the door, just in case the creature tried to head upstairs. The footsteps thundered right on by along with the heavy, ragged, Venom induced exhalations of a monster in search of a kill. It was a siren's song calling to Blake's own Mr. Hyde, a triple dog dare to come out there and start pounding faces to pulp. His whole body was responding in kind, sliding along the wall to the door in the hopes that he could emerge, unseen, with the element of surprise this time. Blake was grasping at anything in his head to give himself even a moment of pause. The cave, Nightwing, Batman. WWBD, Blake? What would Batman do? He heard a venomous growl in the back of his mind, "_You are not Batman_," and the thought crippled any remaining trace of Blake's true self. He was hanging by threads and shreds, tatters of his old existence, when he heard the footsteps turn a corner and fade away.

He almost charged into the hallway. Almost. Still without a plan, still fighting the growing urge to head into battle fists first, but still walking nonetheless, quietly and swiftly in the trail of the creature. The first floor of Arkham was, based on a cursory glance, mostly exam rooms, common rooms, open areas. This was where low-risk patients were admitted, where they were allowed to congregate, so there were few locked rooms anywhere, let alone ones that could contain Strange's experiment. Blake flexed his newly healed leg against the floor, relishing the tension and checking the stability while he was at it. Bane had knocked this one into the basement before. Maybe Blake could do it again. Their combined weight should certainly be enough to bring the building down.

There was no crediting Strange's experiment with intelligence. Blake rounded the corner and followed at a pace that was almost too close for comfort without alerting the creature to his presence. The admitting desk was caged and the door was ajar. He could use that for containment. Just as he was closing the distance with the creature though, Blake noticed the latch had been shot off the door. There was no containing anything in the room.

Blake sank back, retreating, taking several calming breaths as he did so to channel his thoughts. Get a grip on something other than the creature's throat – which he _so_ wanted to do right now. Strange's experiment had a very prominent spinal column, and skin was so thin, so weak, that a strong grip would pierce it immediately, fasten onto the vertebrae, and _pull_.

The creature hissed and stopped walking. Stopped dead. Like he'd heard Blake's thoughts and wanted to voice an opposition. No, Blake thought to himself, breath catching in his throat. He had been snarling again. The creature had heard him snarling.

Now he was out of time and places to hide. There were no rooms nearby to slip into, no way that the creature hadn't heard him. Dumb as Strange's experiments seemed to be, they weren't deaf. The creature was instead turning around, Blake had nowhere to hide, and his feeble plot for containment had no hope for success on this floor. There were only two options left according to the adrenaline rushing through his body: fight or flight. The former most assuredly ended with death; small red pinpricks were starting to appear in his vision, a sure sign that he was losing himself. With the latter, Blake decided, they might both stand a chance of surviving the night. The fourth floor was loaded with locked doors and padded walls. All he had to do was outrun Strange's experiment. He could do that. Piece of cake.

Blake's confidence lasted about as long as it took for the creature to turn and cast a menacing look over his shoulder. The hungry stare and snarl cut straight through all the former detective's newfound bravado and left him feeling open, vulnerable, and hollow all over again. He swallowed a roar, locked his shoulders to keep from swiping, and clung as hard as he could to his memories of being Nightwing. The identity no longer fit, but the creature couldn't tell the difference.

"I thought your friend was ugly," Blake chided, scoffing weakly with disgust. Strange's experiment growled and about-faced, rotating on his axis like a great, murderous planet making its way into Blake's orbit on a collision course. Blake took one cautionary step back, but then he re-donned his Nightwing smirk, a last defence against the monster inside looking for a thrill and a kill. "But Strange must have really screwed up to end up with something that looks like you."

English might not have been the creature's language, but whether it was Blake's tone or the fact that Blake was talking at all, he took immediate offence. He pitched forward with an ear-shattering roar that shook the glass in the wire frames at the admin desk windows, that caused the floor to vibrate under the feet, that could have sent Old Arkham crumbling to the ground if it was just a few decibels louder.

Blake stood his ground against the auditory onslaught, bracing himself against the wall with his now very powerful hand. He then did the only logical thing to do after the night he had been having: Blake roared right back.

Then he turned tail and ran as fast as he could down the hall towards the stairwell.

The sound of thunder behind him told Blake his plan, such as it was, worked. Strange's monster was following in hot pursuit. Air rushed against Blake's bare ankles and heels with every frantic step. One wrong move and it'd be his spine in the creature's hands, his head getting pummelled into pulp. The thought steadied him as he bolted around the corner and threw himself through the doors into the stairwell.

It did not save him from barrelling into the steps though. Blake's feet hit the incline and before he could skid to anything resembling a halt, he was falling headfirst into the stairwell. He stopped himself with his hands, lunging up and up. Small screw-ups didn't mean anything yet. He could still make it to the fourth floor. "Come on, Blake," he urged himself, "Get the hell up."

A massive hand slammed down on his ankle in response. Blake twisted around, trying to pry himself from the grasp, but even his new strength was no match for that hand. Especially not when the creature's other hand, balled into a boulder, launched itself straight into Blake's face.

The railing broke his fall, and then broke underneath him. Blake's torso was far too heavy for the aged building to support, especially with the kind of inertia the punch generated. Blake hit the deck seeing stars, but still launched two very powerful kicks at the creature's legs, knocking him back several small, staggering steps. The only thought that kept him from keeping the creature to death was that he could keep climbing. Straight up to the fourth floor, and after that, freedom.

Strange's experiment had other ideas. He recovered from the kicks and barrelled into Blake's body, thrashing with all of his not unimpressive amount of strength. The Venom was the only thing holding Blake's body together through it all. He locked all his limbs into defensive manoeuvres to keep from attacking, succeeding only in holding Strange's experiment back but pinning himself to the stairwell in the process.

"Hey," Blake grunted, talking over the monster screaming out from inside him, "Hey, I know there's someone else in there. And I know that you don't want to do this. Can you hear me? You alive in there?"

The creature stopped fighting for a second, levelling his hollow eyes on Blake. For the longest second in recorded history, Blake thought he could see the man Strange had taken for his experiment. His grotesque snarl settled into a flat line, his massive muscles relaxed, and he looked almost human. Just abnormally large. The vacancy even started to disappear from his stare as he looked at Blake, actually looked at Blake, and just...looked. No intelligence backed that look up, but it gave Blake hope. "I don't want to kill you," he said. "Come on, man, let me go."

Poor choice of words apparently. The look lasted just a split second more, and then it was gone again, lost completely. Strange's experiment jerked one arm out of Blake's grasp and punched him in the side, knocking him over to the edge of the stairs.

Blake stared up into the stairwell, up towards the sky, the punches drowning into white noise in his head along with the shouts of his own private demon. Regardless of whether he took the cure or not, Blake couldn't climb out of hell until the monster was contained. The only way through hell was through it. He wasn't heading up; he was going down.

He horse kicked the creature off him just enough to roll over the broken railing into the descending stairwell. Blake landed on his feet, and the strength in his legs caught him, held him, let him turn back once more to the creature rising behind him. "Come and get me," he dared, and then descended into the darkness.

The creature's footsteps followed close behind.

* * *

Happy reading!


	18. Chapter Seventeen

Disclaimer: The characters and concepts in this story are the property of DC Comics, Christopher Nolan, and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.

Summary: After Hugo Strange uses him as a test subject for an experiment in the Narrows, John Blake ends up owing his life to Bane and relying on him to survive. Several years post-TDKR. AU.

Author's Notes: I borrowed one of Bane's lines from _The Dark Knight Rises_ in this chapter. I couldn't resist. It just fit so well, and I've missed having Bane around for two chapters. It was nice to have him back in spirit.

To those following this story or who added it to their favourites, thank you. Thank you so much. It's an absolute pleasure knowing there are those out there reading and enjoying this. Enjoy!

* * *

Chapter Seventeen

Foresight had never been one of Blake's strong suits. Long range planning was, as a skill, better developed by children whose parents survived their formative years. Looking ahead was a dreary, dismal prospect for orphans, not to mention an oft-times pointless one. Most of the kids from Blake's cohort at St. Swithin's didn't survive Gotham, and those that did ended up doing so only by the loosest possible definitions. Blake had dragged more than his fair share of former housemates into lock up for hard drugs and harder lifestyles over the years.

It was one of the reasons why Blake had opened up the cave to allies actually: the family made up for his limitations, providing strategy and plans when he would just normally dive in, fists first. Kind of like now, Blake thought, because any member of his team would have offered a better strategy than running through the basement until a better course of action presented itself. Especially since he had no idea where he was going or what he might find down there.

He found cover, then, so he could slow down and get his bearings. The stairs descended straight into near pitch blackness, and while Blake's night vision had always been solid, he suspected Strange's serum might have improved his vision as well. Earlier, he had just barely been able to survey his surroundings. Now, Blake could see everything – the decrepit brick walls, the brown concrete floors, the sheet metal vents and rusted pipes criss-crossing the ceiling. The stacks of old furniture strewn haphazardly over the floor. He avoided those, turning away from the stairwell towards the ancient furnaces to his left.

The urge to kill overwhelmed him the second Blake came to a halt. At least while running, he was distracted from it. Now, he was dizzy with bloodlust. Every beat of his heart washed another wave of adrenaline over his senses, overpowering reason, logic, what little grasp of strategy he tried to possess. Blake wanted to know what the creature's insides looked like. Wanted to run his hands through muscles and sinews, to decorate the ugly basement with the ugly entrails of the wretched beast now searching for him through the darkness.

Blake forced his mouth shut and held his breath. Would have stopped his own heart too if he could will it. Slowly, his body fell back under his control, his thoughts stopped spiralling off into monosyllabic chants of _hate, kill, pull, tear_, and he actually found himself getting ideas. The old furniture, he noticed, was centred around a larger stack at the mouth of a nearby corridor like a barricade. An odd place for hospital staff to leave it, but not quite so odd for someone looking to lock something inside.

"Bane," he whispered, half in thanks but mostly in astonishment. The mercenary's earlier assessment had given Blake the impression that the creature had simply been thrown into the basement and was too dumb to find his way out. Apparently, Bane had actually gone to some lengths to keep the creature contained. Blake scoffed quietly. "I'll be damned."

The furniture had held once, but it had suffered some major damage when the creature escaped. Blake couldn't risk using it again. There didn't appear to be any locked rooms that he could employ either, not down here. His best – and perhaps only – option was to incapacitate the creature. Or, at the very least, just slow him up until the cavalry could arrive. _Without_, Blake grimaced and fought his way through his inner monster's clutches, _killing him_.

Self-doubt chewed at his abdominals, but he made the promise out loud. "I am not going to kill him," Blake whispered. "I won't. Shut up. I won't." He was just going to pull himself back before it came to that. The family would get here before he could fly off the handle. Something would happen, and it would stop him this time.

...and that was the extent of Blake's plan.

He didn't give himself any extra time to contemplate murder. The constant chant of _kill, tear, rip_ was drowned out by the pounding of his heart, the thunder of blood in his ears, the sudden silence that preceded battle. Blake flanked the creature, taking up a broken chair from the floor as he did so. Not that he needed an extra weapon, but Blake felt safer not using his hands. The last time his fists had their way...no, he wasn't going to think about it. Not now. He was going to stop himself this time.

Strange's experiment was marching right back towards the barricade of furniture. Perfect. Blake raised the chair over his head. One blow to the head, one _non-lethal_ blow to the head, and his job would be done. This hellish night would finally be over.

He heaved the chair down with all the strength he could muster, forgetting, of course, that the strength he could muster now was considerable. That his new musculature was designed to kill, not to injure, and he might be doing just that all over again. The thought stayed Blake's hands for just a second, catching him mid-swing: he shouldn't be here right now.

Blake almost turned around. Almost. He almost had a chance to bolt up the stairs, inject the antidote, and hide out until help arrived. Leave all this crime fighting to the professionals. Stop making sacrifices when he had nothing left to give. He never got the chance though. The creature turned around, caught the chair and tore it from Blake's hand, then brought it crashing down across the former detective's face and chest.

The blow brought Blake to his knees, reeling not from pain but the complete absence of it. His whole body had hardened to stone, the nerve endings sealing up inside him, impervious to damage. The only evidence he had been struck with in his cognition, which stopped for just a moment, blackened, and then reset like a computer. Blake's inner monster rose to the occasion with a snarl, and he almost allowed himself to be overtaken. He had never felt more alive than right now, when pain was a distant memory and the only thing standing in his way was an ever weakening will.

Losing control had just felt so good before. It would feel even better a second time around, especially if he never came back to his senses.

The creature swung the chair again, summoning Blake back to himself before his killer instincts could take over. He folded his arms into a block. His veins pulsed Venom green through his skin upon impact, reminding Blake once again that he was running out of time. In fact, he was living strictly on borrowed time.

"Is that all you got?" he dared in his Nightwing voice.

Strange's experiment roared in response before lunging, catching Blake in a tackle that made him black out for another second. When his vision returned to him, Blake found himself laying a barrage of punches into the creature's chest, hard enough that greenish bruises plumed through the pale skin before the healing factor could stop them.

He rolled away before the compunction to start _biting and ripping_ became impossible to resist. His old training as Nightwing saw him back on his feet with another weapon in hand, this time a piece of old lead pipe about the same length as one of his old eskrima sticks. Blake didn't bother with his inner turmoil a moment longer. He dove towards the creature's still lowered head fist-first, pipe at the ready. The family could come up with a strategy when they arrived. Blake was the only one there now, fighting, and he was going to fight on his terms: not theirs or the monster's.

Even with his full strength behind it, Blake's weapon barely had an effect on the creature. The pipe practically bounced off his bare scalp and back to where Blake found it. He risked a second swing then as well as a third, taking advantage of the creature's position. When Strange's experiment finally returned to his feet, Blake slammed the pipe into his abdomen and then behind his knees, hoping to knock him down again.

The creature stood his ground despite the blows and immediately began flailing his arms and torso about. He looked like he was trying to swat a fly instead of catch a human opponent. Thankfully, Blake was faster and more coordinated, his body summoning up all his Nightwing trailing anew. He ducked and rolled, landing hits around the creature's knees, thighs, and forearms to little or no productive effect. All Blake managed to do was irritate the creature into another tackle, one he dodged. Strange's experiment ended up on the other side of the room, head tossing this way and that in a mad but futile search for his opponent.

He was too stupid to notice Blake rushing him from behind this time. Not until the former detective slammed a pipe across the back of his neck anyways, but by that point it was too late. The blow to the base of his spinal column brought the creature to his knees with a pathetic, broken wail, a sound that almost made Blake crumble too. His hands shook as he lifted the pipe for another swing. "I'm sorry," Blake said firmly. "Christ, I'm so sorry..." For everything too: for what Strange had done, for what he was doing, for what he had failed to do earlier. Blake was sorry.

That didn't stop him from swinging the pipe though. Nothing could by that point. As sorry as he was, Blake still had a job to do. He wasn't going to let this thing reap havoc in Gotham, no matter how much it killed him to do it.

He struck a few inches below his intended target, slapping the pipe between two of the creature's prominent vertebrae. The blow would have crippled any regular person, but it wasn't enough to take down Strange's experiment. In an instant, the creature was back on his feet, arms outstretched, spinning wildly on his axis. He collided with Blake and just started pounding.

Blake barely had time to breathe, let alone think. He was pure reaction in those moments, blocking and failing to dodge, retreating and somehow getting draw back into the creature's orbit. There was no pain, only punches and head butts; he was caught up in chaotic grabs and locks that had no names, were invented in all the dark places that the Venom had unlocked in this poor man's head. Every time he managed to slip out, Blake was sucked right back in again, this time with less of a chance of escaping. He was fighting a losing battle.

Well, Nightwing was anyways. Blake felt something else creeping into his sinews that longer the fight progressed, something stronger and more powerful than the creature he was fighting. Something darker and angrier and terrifying. Something that made him choke back a roar, pull back from an attack, and hide behind defensive manoeuvres his body no longer understood how to use. He was losing two battles now, and Blake wasn't sure what was going to break first: his body or his brain.

One punch caught him squarely under the jaw before a meaty hand wrapped itself around his puny neck. Blake was lifted clear off the ground and shoved into a wall.

Something inside him snapped. It wasn't his body. Blake had lost his body a long time ago.

Blake shoved his thumbs through the soft flesh on the creature's wrists until they popped out the other side.

The last thing he heard was the creature's broken scream again, right before they were both thrown sideways into the darkness.

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Only two chapters left by my calculations. Happy reading!


	19. Chapter Eighteen

Disclaimer: The characters and concepts in this story are the property of DC Comics, Christopher Nolan, and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.

Summary: After Hugo Strange uses him as a test subject for an experiment in the Narrows, John Blake ends up owing his life to Bane and relying on him to survive. Several years post-TDKR. AU.

Author's Notes: For the first time in several years of being on this site, I have finally penned and posted the penultimate chapter to a story. Apologies for the delay: I was back at work last week and penning a conference proposal. The next installment shouldn't take too long. I have been working on drafts of it since I started.

Thank you to everyone who has been so much as glancing at this story. To the followers, the people who favourited, those kind fellows who left reviews: much obliged. I do hope that you're still hanging on until the end! Enjoy!

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Chapter Eighteen

Blake was vaguely aware that he was still throwing punches, but every swing was being thrown aside by one very quick, very powerful arm. The sheer wrongness of defeat caused white spots to dance across his reddened vision. He was on a collision course with reality, but the Venom-induced anger hadn't gone away, nor did Blake particularly want to see it go. He had resigned to completely losing himself in this fight. There was nothing left for him to come back to anyways.

He kept fighting with the lone arm then, right up until the moment his vision returned, bringing the sight of a monstrous palm along with it. Blake tried to tear the hand off of the arm it was attached to, but even at his full strength, he was no match for his opponent. The hand slammed into his face, knocking him back to the ground. He didn't feel the pain of the impact, but he did feel the thumb and fingers tighten around the sharp groves of his features, locking in place. No amount of Venom could have given Blake enough strength to free himself either. He roared, kicked, and pounded; he tore at flesh until blood splattered over his fingertips. Blake sobered somewhat and tried to kick at whoever was pinning him down, but he couldn't see to aim, and his assailant was too fast for him anyways.

The sounds of a fight continued, but this time, they weren't coming exclusively from Blake. He forced himself to steady just for a moment to listen, and sure enough, those broken, whining noises were a few feet away from him. The metallic hiss of a respirator was closer, hovering just above, close to the hand still crushed against Blake's face. He felt a whole new wave of anger crest inside him, inspiring his limbs to fight again with renewed vigor. This time, Blake actually managed to elicit a small grunt from the man holding him down. He earned his freedom a second later by punching again, this time hard enough that his assailant's wrist snapped while being thrown aside.

Bane made a sound, something low and throaty, buried deep beneath his mask, mouth, and Adam's apple. It was unlike any sound Blake had ever heard: a weird amalgamation of animal, human, and machine. Under normal circumstances, Blake might have taken it as a sign that he had gone too far. Pain was the only sensation strong enough to generate a sound so anti-language as that, and much as Blake hated Bane – all the more now that he had all but lost his mind – he didn't want to cause the mercenary any pain. As these were not even close to resembling normal circumstances though, Blake took the sound as an invitation. If Bane could feel the pain of a broken wrist, he would definitely feel the pain from being ripped to pieces.

Blake couldn't stop himself, didn't want to stop himself. He dove into Bane before the mercenary could fully recover from having his wrist broken, and the two fell together, away from Strange's creature who Bane had pinned to the floor. They landed in a heap of flailing meat, Blake laying every blow he could and Bane defending with that same preternatural speed and surety he had displayed in the padded cell earlier. Even with his wrist broken, even without the advantage provided by Venom, Bane still managed to hold his own. The fact just made Blake even angrier and even more uncoordinated. He started cursing, swearing, yelling in a vocabulary of monosyllables, because Bane had destroyed everything. The Batman, Gotham, Blake...everything.

He was so lost in a flurry of rage that Blake didn't notice Bane quietly gaining the upper hand. The mercenary looped his legs up in front of Blake's broad chest and pried the former Nightwing from his perch, slamming him against the floor in the process. Blake was temporarily stunned when his head struck the concrete. Not as long as he should have been, but long enough that Bane had climbed back to his feet by the time Blake's senses returned to him.

The scariest part for Blake was that he was already back on his feet too, ready to attack again.

He tried to tell himself that he was prepared for this, that letting go was part of the plan, but staring Bane down with a death glare and having no recollection of why struck Blake deeply. The fear penetrated his Venom frenzy and put him right back in the padded cell moments after his first black out. This wasn't _him_. He didn't want to kill Bane. And as much as he didn't want to live in pain, Blake didn't want to be anybody else either. Strange's serum was a perversion of existence, a violation of the human condition, and Blake wasn't going to stand for it.

The violence was rising inside him, bubbling up like a tide of pure hellfire. Blake's voice, his real voice, the small, quiet one that only a precious few had ever been privy to, emerged from his throat in one desperate plea. "Help," he said. "Help me."

Blake thought he saw Bane nod. He couldn't be sure though. No sooner were the words out of his mouth than self-control slipped through his fingers again. He saw red once again, literally, and tried to charge. Thankfully – or unthankfully – Strange's creature saw fit to rejoin the fight, and at that moment, pounced on Blake from behind.

Venom had silenced all the pain receptors in his body, from his head to his arms to his legs, causing Blake to all but forget about his old injuries. Until now, of course. Strange's experiment pounded his fist into Blake's lower back, directly above where his injury used to reside, and there it was again: pain. Fresh as the fateful day four years ago. Blake's back exploded with agony anew.

The scream that tore itself out of his throat wasn't angry; it was pure, unadulterated suffering. Blake's chest swelled with distress. The pain split his body in two and threatened to tear him apart: arms and chest one way, hips and legs the other.

Strange's creature punched him again.

The knot at the base of his spine, that elegant circle of mangled flesh still housing the bullet, came very suddenly undone and went free floating through his body. That shouldn't have made the pain worse, but it did, because now the pain was passing through his bloodstream. Rounding all the sharp curves in his abdomen. Swelling into a stone between his lungs. Shooting like a bullet through his GI tract.

All. Over. Again.

Blake didn't feel the third punch. He was oblivious to Bane tearing the creature from him too. There was no room for anything else inside him except the gunshot wound.

He was vaguely aware that he was turning. That he was reaching out through the darkness towards the kneeling form of Strange's creature. That his hands wanted to do terrible things and he couldn't stop them.

But Bane could. In fact, Bane did. He swept his injured hand in front of Blake's outstretched arms.

"No," he commanded. "This city has broken too many good men already, Robin John Blake, and I have saved your life too many times for it to take yours."

Bane's other hand swung calmly into view. He was wielding the pipe Blake had held earlier. "It would be best," he wound up for the first blow, "if you do not watch."

Blake couldn't look away though. "You don't have to-"

Two wet slaps followed: first the pipe striking the creature's head, next the creature's heavy body hitting the floor. The rest of the sounds got wetter and wetter, juicier and juicier, until the pipe clattered to the floor.

The next thing Blake knew, Bane's foot was pressed tightly against his sternum, and he was being kicked down to the floor. He tried to fight, but the pain was still coiled so tightly at the base of his spine there was no use even trying to move of his own volition. No matter how much the monster inside wanted to kill.

"You would have done it if I did not," Bane remarked pointedly.

Blake could barely breathe. His lungs were sandwiched between the mercenary's weight and the pain. "So why did you?"

Bane pulled something long, thin, and glistening from his pocket. "Because I can live with taking a life."

He knelt down, placing more and more weight on Blake's chest as he did so to ensure the former detective couldn't move. The closer he got, the clearer the object in his hands became. Bane was wielding another syringe, and this time, Blake didn't think it was loaded with anesthetic.

Do or die time. The pain flared warningly, excited to finally rule him once again. Blake shook his head. "No. Please. It's better this way. Just leave me here."

Bane tilted his head inquisitively.

"There's nothing left for me," Blake's voice cracked. His heart was breaking under the weight of the mercenary's foot.

"You are no monster," Bane uncapped the syringe.

Blake grabbed Bane's ankle with both of his hands, hissing as his back twisted again, but fighting for one last ounce of clarity to pose his last request. "Leave now," he begged, before the monster inside added, "Or I will tear your leg off and beat you to death with it."

Bane's eyes gleamed, enamoured by the threat. "The Bat did not choose you to be his successor because Gotham needed another half-hearted monster, little bird. Darkness does not fit you, no matter how Strange's serum might have poisoned your mind. You are a light for Gotham, a beacon. Don't let yourself be extinguished now that times are at its darkest."

"You said you didn't believe in hope."

"I believe in hope; I do not trust it."

"Then why..." Blake was gasping for every small ounce of air he could. His vision was starting to blacken. "Why trust me?"

"Because your will is stronger than my distrust," Bane replied. He poised the needle towards Blake's neck. "This is going to hurt."

Needle stick. Sharp pain in the back of his neck. Strange's voice saying, "This is going to make it all better." A rush of dry heat spread down Blake's spine like a desert wind. No hemorrhaging this time. Just a long, slow burn that added to the first in his lower back.

His vision went white suddenly, and Blake gasped. Air filled his lungs and sat there, stagnant and stale, because his blood didn't seem to be going anywhere. Blake had learned how to describe pain over the years, but there were no words for whatever was happening now. Every nerve ending in his body cried out in great cacophony, silencing all his senses in one searing sonic boom.

He sensed movement. Darkness circled on the white of his vision, creating a single long tunnel above him. The last thing Blake saw was movement in the beyond, a single black speck that fell closer and closer, one that lengthened and bobbed and finally took shape as the silhouette of a bat.

* * *

...one last installment to go! Happy reading!


	20. Epilogue

Disclaimer: The characters and concepts in this story are the property of DC Comics, Christopher Nolan, and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.

Summary: After Hugo Strange uses him as a test subject for an experiment in the Narrows, John Blake ends up owing his life to Bane and relying on him to survive. Several years post-TDKR. AU.

Author's Notes: I needed to bulk up Blake's bat family with characters from the comic books. The way I've imagined it, Kate Kane (a.k.a. Batwoman) becomes the leader of the family. For those that are interested, I cannot recommend DC's New 52 of Batwoman enough! They are amazing! I've also included Stephanie Brown, who has had a number of alter-egos in the comics (she was even Robin at one point), as Blake's successor as Nightwing. I also mention Tim Drake, who would be Robin.

Barbara Gordon is featured here most prominently. She appears in _The Dark Knight_ as the very young daughter of Commissioner Gordon. In the comic books, she grows up to be Batgirl and, later, Oracle, a hacker and information broker to superheroes. I figured that she would probably be one of Blake's first allies in Gotham, once she grows up a little, and I've got her representing the family in the chapter. Also, in Alan Moore's _The Killing Joke_, it's Barbara who's shot and paralyzed by the Joker, landing her behind a computer monitor as Oracle. I decided to see how Blake would manage under similar circumstances.

Thank you, readers! You made writing an absolute pleasure. I truly appreciate your kind attention. I hope you've enjoyed the story. Hopefully, I'll see you again soon! If not, very happy reading to you!

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Epilogue

Blake shivered himself awake. A chill had settled through his skin all the way to the bones, so no matter how tightly he managed to cocoon himself in the thin, hospital-issue blankets there was no respite from the cold.

He tried to focus on his other senses, the ones that weren't freezing, but Blake was too exhausted to muster the effort. He was just a passive receiver for everything: the sound of the rain spattering against a windowpane; the sharp pull of...something on his wrist. Blue. Blue everywhere. An icy, somewhat caustic blue colour to go with the icy, caustic smell of antiseptic.

The word materialized slowly in Blake's mind, despite his familiarity with the many healthcare facilities around Gotham and the state: hospital. He was in a hospital. Not Old Arkham either; a _real_ hospital. Gotham General most likely. ICU? Blake willed himself to awareness but couldn't manage to do more than move his head. That action alone left him reeling, spinning headlong into darkness all over again. His only lifeline was the cold, that deep-seated chill, which kept the chemical sleep from swallowing him up completely.

Blake's eyes opened again a second later, just a crack, but they cleared enough this time that he could make out a gloomy window and a lone figure standing in front of it. Groggy and disoriented as he was, Blake would know Barbara Gordon anywhere. They had been everything to one another for a years, and then, after the shooting and the paralysis, they fell apart. Well, if Blake was being perfectly honest, he drove her away. When he woke up after the shooting and his first surgery, Barbara was waiting by his bedside. Now, she stood by the window.

He swallowed. His throat was dry, aching, but still, Blake tried to speak. After several attempts, he finally managed a hoarse, "Hey."

Barbara turned, smile lighting her eyes with relief. "Hi."

"It's you."

She nodded. "Yes, it is me."

Blake was coughing before he could state more of the obvious. When he stopped, the mouth of a straw and the promise of cool water were kissing his lips softly. "Small sips," Barbara reminded him. As if he needed reminding with the number of times they'd done this. Blake wanted to chide her, but his throat wasn't up for speaking again yet, not even after a few sips of water. He could only settle back against the pillows, head-spinning and chills increasing, awake enough now to realize that he couldn't quite feel his legs but not awake enough to know why that was such a bad thing.

Barbara's footsteps moved slowly back towards the window. Blake gave a small groan. Ten years together – as friends, allies – and she was just going to sullenly withdraw from him. That didn't sound like the Barbara he knew, but maybe that Barbara left two years ago too.

A second later, something heavy and warm was draped over his body, and Blake felt the chill start to subside. "Reilly left half a linen cupboard," Barbara explained. "I can get the nurses to bring you a warm one though."

"No," he shook his head. Oh, bad idea. "No, this is fine." He peered at her through the crack in his eyelids. Barbara was running a hand down his arm detachedly. Just like old times. The gesture was both comforting and not for Blake. These were really old times he was thinking about. "What are you doing here?"

Honestly, Blake had expected Stephanie to be the one he woke up to, if he woke up at all. Stephanie Brown, his successor as Nightwing, by far the most personable of the bunch next to Tim. She had kept bedside vigils before. Tim had too, but as a fifteen year old, he had a curfew. Kate Kane, their fearless leader, hated hospitals and had the bedside manner of a crocodile, but Blake wouldn't be surprised to see the Batwoman's silhouette hovering around the window at some point tonight. Caustic as she was, Batwoman was probably the most sentimental of the lot.

He never imagined that Barbara would be the one waiting for him, not after their last conversation. The fight had been so bad that she had since outsourced her alter-egos, Batgirl and Oracle, to another group of vigilantes in Gotham. While she was still a member of the family then, Barbara had been keeping her distance of late. Blake felt his temperature rise slightly at the sight of her then, the cold dispelled momentarily by better times.

Barbara shrugged. "Short straw."

There was a time when she fought tooth and nail to stand by him. Now, he was the short straw. Blake shivered. He wanted to be unconscious again.

Her hand came to rest on his shoulder. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that. Kate, Steph, and Tim were here most of the day. Dad and Reilly stopped by too. I figured they could use a break. Are you sure you don't want a warm blanket? It's normal for you to be cold after surgery."

"I had surgery," Blake wasn't sure if that ought to be a statement or a question. He knew he had surgery instinctively, but he didn't know why. Something from before, something that had been playing havoc in his mind throughout his hellish night at Old Arkham.

"_Just administering your first dose of anesthetic, Mr. Blake._"

The memory finally unfolded in his mind, now that he wasn't trying so hard to remember it. "I was going to have surgery," Blake corrected himself. Last night...yesterday, he had been admitted to the hospital for surgery. He had scheduled another nerve block for his left leg and arrived at the hospital yesterday to undergo the procedure.

"Strange abducted you from the operating room," Barbara confirmed.

Blake still couldn't be sure if those were his legs he was feeling or phantom sensations powered by the memories of the night before. He couldn't breathe. "I had surgery," he repeated dumbly, fighting to stay calm. Barbara nodded. Blake almost vomited. He had been walking again, but they had gone ahead and taken away his legs anyways.

Barbara ran a hand through Blake's hair to calm him. "Why didn't you tell us you were having surgery?"

"Oh, please," he choked, fighting tears. Those fuzzy sensations under the covers were more taunting than haunting now. He had come so close. Sixteen hours ago, he had been standing up on his own two feet. Now, he was never going to walk again. "You knew."

"Well, yeah."

"Why didn't you say anything, then?"

Her expression begged the question, "You're kidding, right?" Blake closed his eyes, praying for unconsciousness again. He had said things, thrown things, the last time he had surgery that it was no wonder Barbara hadn't said anything. "I'm sick of being so helpless," he admitted bitterly. "This procedure was going to leave me in a wheelchair for the rest of my life."

"We want to help you, Robin."

The sound of his name hurt, especially the way she said it. Sad, sympathetic. Robin Blake, the useless, legless wonder. His throat closed right up. "I don't need help," he choked.

He wanted Barbara to say something, but she didn't. Silence was the best response. His statement hung in the air between them, the same way Blake's bitterness hung in the cave between him and the other members of the family. They usually allowed him to maintain the lie, but now, in the wake of Old Arkham, Strange's experiment, and Bane, Blake couldn't lie to himself, much less Barbara.

"I don't _want_ help," he amended at last.

"We're a family," Barbara replied softly, sadly. "That's what families do."

Blake's sadness welled up in his throat like a fist. They were going to have to be helping him a lot more now. Christ, he needed to change the subject. "Where's Bane?"

Barbara didn't press. "We're apprehending him now, chasing down a couple of leads. He seems to have taken a liking to you though."

"What makes you say that?"

"He handed himself in when we found you. Practically drove himself to New Arkham."

Blake didn't think it was the drugs keeping that from making sense. "But you just said we're apprehending him."

"We are. He broke out a few hours after processing," Barbara said, "but not before breaking Joker's legs."

A rush of warmth swept through Blake in response. He stared at Barbara, waiting for her to clarify or correct her retelling, but she just shrugged again. "Multiple fractures, both legs. Doctors don't think he'll ever walk again."

Blake felt comfortably numb. "I don't feel bad about that."

"Yeah, neither do I," Barbara agreed.

She let that thought linger between them in the silence this time. Blake was grateful. That was a lot to take in after everything. Bane had let himself be captured in order to brutalize the Joker. No, more than that: Bane had avenged him, because Blake couldn't and didn't avenge himself.

It was almost sweet. Almost. In an unsettling way.

"So what happens now?" Blake asked finally. "Now that..." he looked towards his legs.

Barbara kept her tone slow, soft, careful, like her words might break him further. "Well, whatever Strange injected you with repaired the nerve damage to your right leg."

There was no softening that blow. Blake couldn't help but hyperventilate, fighting back tears. "But I can't...I don't..."

He still wasn't sure. Everything was so fuzzy. Blake's head spun. Barbara dug through the blankets until she found his hand and held it tightly in hers. "You're on some pretty heavy painkillers right now for reversing the effects of the growth hormone," she informed him. "But they checked after surgery: the sensation and mobility has completely returned. Steph said you were wiggling your toes earlier in the evening."

The smile that lit her face revealed she was tearful too. Blake wished he could match her expression, but he was struck by memories of his back pain. That stabbing sensation at the base of his spine would eventually cost him his legs again. Strange's serum had just bought him time, time for the bullet to work its way into his sciatic nerve.

Barbara tightened her grip on his hand as if she could hear what he was thinking. "Strange's experiment also healed your spine."

Blake tried to tear his hand from hers, terrified of what she was about to say, but Barbara held fast. "That thing in the basement," he said, "He beat the hell out of my back." Probably undid all the good of Strange's serum and drove the bullet deeper. The surgery was probably to try and repair his injuries from the fight.

"Whatever happened," Barbara wrapped her other hand around Blake's forearm to keep him from shirking away, "The bullet was dislodged from your spinal chord. That's why you had surgery, Blake: they were removing the bullet."

The tearing sensation, Blake recalled with a groan. The creature had given the bullet the final push it needed to leave his backbone. "So what's the damage?" he asked.

Barbara shook her head. "Doctors are going to talk to about physio, especially as you recuperate from the effects of the growth hormone, but they suspect you'll make a full recovery."

His whole chest ached under the strain of the revelation. He didn't deserve hope, not after what he had done, but there hope was all the same. "What does that mean?" Blake fought the sobs bobbing by the root of his tongue. "I'm gonna..." he balled his hands into fists for strength, "I'm gonna walk again?"

"Robin," Barbara ran her hand comfortingly over his forearm, "You're going to be able to fly again."

The levee broke. Blake bawled. Every awful thing from the past four years, from the past twenty-four hours, tumbled out of him in anguished, bitter sobs. He tried to pull his hands towards his face, the desire to hide himself overwhelming every other impulse, but Blake couldn't navigate his way out of the blanket. The whole world felt like it was crumbling down around him, crushing in from all sides, and he was stuck in the middle of the mess: lost, dizzy, sick, torn. "I'm not...I'm not Nightwing anymore. I've done...things..."

Blake was rambling, but he didn't care. Couldn't stop himself. She had to know what it had cost him to walk through hell, how many pieces of his soul he had to trade to wake up here.

Barbara's hands were on his cheeks. Blake was balanced between her arms, but he couldn't meet her stare. "Being Nightwing is about the choices you make, Blake. Strange took that away from you last night. Whatever you've done, that's not you."

"I hope you're right," Blake whimpered, even though he didn't really trust hope anymore. The price he had to pay to see his hope rewarded was too high to trust it any longer.

Barbara turned Blake's head and waited for him to look her in the eyes. "I don't have to hope," she said. "I know. Enough for both of us."

Blake swallowed hard, one final revelation dawning upon him. "Then your will's stronger than my distrust," he said sadly.

"We're family, Robin: that's what families are for."

* * *

Special thanks again, readers. Happy reading!


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